Research in the CSP

Faculty within the Astronomy, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering Departments here at Boston University work with research scientists, visiting scholars, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate and undergraduate students to pursue unique research within their distinctive research fields.

Faculty Research Interests

Department of Astronomy

Professor John Clarke – Planetary atmospheres; UV astrophysics; FUV instruments for remote observations

Assistant Professor Chuanfei Dong – Star–terrestrial planet interactions in our Solar System and beyond; magnetic reconnection, turbulence, wave–particle interactions, and collisionless shocks; physics-informed machine learning and AI for Science; laboratory astrophysics and high-intensity laser–plasma interactions.

Associate Professor Wen Li – Space plasma waves; Earth’s radiation belt physics; solar-wind magnetosphere coupling; energetic particle precipitation; Jovian magnetosphere and aurora

Research Associate Professor Carlos Martinis – Ionospheric Physics, Space Physics, Thermosphere/Ionosphere plasma irregularities

Professor Michael Mendillo – Space physics; planetary atmospheres; observations and models

Associate Professor Toshi Nishimura – Aurora, Solar wind-Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Interaction, Ionosphere-Thermosphere Interaction at Earth, Optical and Radar Imaging, Space Weather

Professor Merav Opher – Computational and theoretical plasma physics in space and astrophysics; Interaction of the solar system with the interstellar medium; solar wind; shocks in the lower corona, T-Tauri and Solar-Like Stars

Professor Meers Oppenheim – Computational and theoretical space plasma physics; dynamics of the ionosphere and solar atmosphere; particle-wave interactions in plasmas; physics of meteor trails

Professor Paul Withers – Planetary atmospheres and ionospheres; radio science instruments; accelerometer instruments

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Professor W. Clem Karl – Statistical signal processing, Inverse problems, Biomedical signal and image processing, Multidimensional signal and image processing, Synthetic Aperture Radar

Professor Ronald Knepper – VLSI integrated circuit technology, SiGe BICMOS device and circuit modeling, Silicon CMOS and bipolar devices, Numerical device simulation, RF/analog IC design

Professor Joshua Semeter – Ionospheric and space-plasma physics; radar signal processing; spectroscopy of atmospheric airglow and aurora; optical sensors; image reconstruction and tomography

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Professor Thomas Bifano – Deformable Mirrors, Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS), Adaptive Optics, Biphotonic Microscopy, Astronomical Telescope Instrumentation, Laser Wavefront Control

Associate Professor Ray Nagem – Structural dynamics, Random vibration, Wave propagation, Inverse problems

Associate Professor Brain Walsh – Space Plasmas, magnetic reconnection, X-ray imaging, cubesats, spacecraft instrumentation, and space technology