Dear SHINE community, 

You are reading the first SHINE Newsletter of 2022! Just a reminder that this new format aims to keep our community informed about the coming workshop, any job ads for early-career you may publish, NSF notifications or any other things happening in our community. 
Best regards,

Teresa Nieves, Coordinator
PS. At the bottom of the newsletter there is a link to subscribe/unsubscribe, don’t hesitate to forward this newsletter to your colleagues.

In this newsletter:

1. Introduction to Plasma Physics for Undergraduate students.
2. NSF Updates -Welcome to Dr. Chia-Lin and Dr. Tai-Yin.
3. SHINE Session Proposal Deadline is approaching. 

Introduction to Plasma Physics for Undergraduate students

Are you curious about learning more about plasmas? Maybe you are looking at getting involved in fusion energy? Maybe you are just curious to learn more about the interior of stars and gas giants? Are you a 2nd or 3rd year undergraduate in physics or engineering? We are offering a free remote introduction to plasma physics reading course, which will start January 31st and will last 13 weeks (spring semester). More information and registration can be found here:
Virtual Introduction to Plasma Physics – Small College Plasma Consortium
Sometimes getting involved in a new topic can be overwhelming. To lower the barrier of getting started on a research topic related to plasma physics, we plan to teach a plasma physics class for 2nd and 3rd undergraduate students. This class will be offered via zoom (and live at W&M) and will be taught as a reading class. In a reading class, each week, students will be assigned parts of a textbook to read and work through as preparation for class. During the lecture itself, the instructor will first give a short summary of the material. Depending on the topic, the instructor might expand beyond what is in the textbook or connect the material to concepts that might relate to ongoing research questions.

NSF Updates – Welcome to Dr. Chia-Lin and Dr. Tai-Yin as program directors in Geospace section.

The Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences at NSF is pleased to welcome Dr. Chia-Lin Huang and Dr. Tai-Yin Huang as program directors in Geospace section.

Dr. Chia-Lin Huang joins AGS from the University of New Hampshire, where she is a Research Assistant Faculty member. She will be serving as a Program Director for Magnetospheric Physics and Solar-Terrestrial Research Programs. Dr. Huang is a Space Physicist studying the Earth’s magnetosphere driven by the solar wind. Recently, her interests have included energetic particle precipitations and their impact on the atmosphere. After working with NSF as a student, researcher, and meeting organizer,  Dr. Huang is excited to be part of the NSF family to expand her experience and serve the science community. Dr. Huang received a B.S. degree from the National Central University in Taiwan and a Ph.D. from Boston University.  Her NSF email is chihuang@nsf.gov. 

Dr. Tai-Yin Huang joins AGS from Penn State Lehigh Valley, where she is a professor of physics. She is also affiliated with the Electrical Engineering Department of Penn State University Park. Her research interests include gravity waves dynamics, airglow chemistry, and energetics in the MLT region, Lightning-Induced Transient Emissions (LITEs) of airglow, sprites and elves, global warming and climate change, specializing in analytical approach, numerical simulation, and data analysis. She will be working with the Aeronomy program and leading an exploration of data infrastructure needs for the geospace field. Dr. Huang received a B.S. degree in Physics from the National Changhua University of Education in Taiwan and a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Cincinnati.  Her NSF email is  thuang@nsf.gov.

Please join us in welcoming Chia-Lin and Tai-Yin and we look forward to working closely together to serve the Geospace community.

Alan Liu, PhD
Acting Section Head, Geospace
Program Director, Aeronomy
Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences
National Science Foundation
(703) 292-7051 | zhualiu@nsf.gov

SHINE SESSION PROPOSAL DEADLINE IS APPROACHING

The 2022 SHINE workshop is currently planned for the week of 2022 June 26-July 1 in Honolulu, Hawaii. This year, we are requesting session proposals through an online google form (link provided below). The deadline for session proposals is 2022 January 31. Note that we are not presently requesting session proposals for the joint GEM-SHINEday. Based on the community feedback that we gathered at our summer online workshop, we are soliciting two separate types of sessions: 1) focused sessions (e.g., “electron and ion distributions in the solar wind” or “potential field solutions”) and 2) multi/cross/inter-disciplinary sessions (e.g., “Observations of turbulence and reconnection on the solar surface”, “Connecting heliophysics and laboratory plasma physics”). These two types of session proposals will be assessed and scheduled separately. We expect to choose ~6-12 multi-disciplinary sessions and ~10-15 focused sessions.
 
Also per the community feedback, there will be additional time and space for networking opportunities and small group discussions/meetings, which will not require a proposal.
 
https://forms.gle/9Y4qcWgdHEGj8YQZA