EECS Alumna Jamesina Simpson (Ph.D. 07') to Serve as 2015 NASA LWS Institute Member

Congratulations to EECS alumna, Prof. Jamesina Simpson (BSEE 03', PHD 07')!

Congratulations to EECS alumna, Prof. Jamesina Simpson (BSEE 03', PHD 07')! As a culmination of her JGR--Space Physics publication on short-time scale surface EM fields resulting from a CME, Prof. Simpson has been invited to serve as one of 20 select international scientists to join the 2015 NASA Living with a Star Institute Working Group.

The group plans to meet in person for one week during the Spring and one week during the Fall. Additionally, her group will be preparing a report to NASA, as well as a journal publication.

Prof. Simpson is currently an Associate Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Utah. Her collegiate career began by obtaining B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Northwestern University, in 2003 and 2007, respectively. Prof. Simpson's Ph.D. advisor was Prof. Allen Taflove and the title of her Ph.D. dissertation was “3-D FDTD Modeling of Impulsive Electromagnetic Propagation in the Global Earth-Ionosphere Waveguide below 30 kHz” (View PDF). As a graduate student, Dr. Simpson was a recipient of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship, and also received fellowships, awards, and grants-in-aid from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Antennas and Propagation Society (AP-S), IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S), McCormick School of Engineering, and Intel Corporation.

From August 2007 to June 2012, Prof. Simpson was a tenure-track assistant professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department at the University of New Mexico (UNM). In July 2012, she joined the University of Utah. Her research lab encompasses the application of FDTD to modeling electromagnetic phenomena at frequencies over 15 orders of magnitude (~1 Hz vs. ~600 THz). Prof. Simpson's research activities have been funded by NASA, Sandia National Labs, Los Alamos National Labs, Intel Corporation, the Department of Energy, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

She has received research and teaching awards, including a 2010 NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award (entitled “3-D Global Full-Maxwell's Equations Modeling of the Effects of a Coronal Mass Ejection on the Earth”), a 2011 Air Force Summer Faculty Fellowship, and the 2012 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Donald G. Dudley, Jr. Undergraduate Teaching Award. From 2010 - 2014, she was an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation. For 2015-2018, she was elected to serve on the IEEE AP-S Administration Committee and also as Vice Chair of USNC-URSI Commission B. And, she was invited as one of 20 international scientists to serve on the 2015 NASA Living with a Star Institute Working Group.

The goal of NASA Living With a Star program is to provide missions to improve our understanding of how and why the Sun varies, how the Earth and Solar System respond, and how the variability and response affects humanity in Space and on Earth. Thus, the LWS program with its focus on the basic science underlying all aspects of space weather and climate, acts as a catalyst to bring the many research disciplines and applications communities together to deepen the understanding of the system of systems created by the Sun Earth connection. To that end, the LWS Institute Working Groups will provide an opportunity for scientists from all over the world to contribute to the evolution of heliophysics.

The inaugural LWS Institute is designed to facilitate a bridge between cutting-edge heliophysics research and a societally relevant technology area that is affected by space weather. Competitively selected working groups will define and scope new research that will make a critical difference to this technology.

Further Reading: "EECS Alumna Jamesina Simpson (Ph.D. 07'), Elected Vice Chair (2015-17) and Chair (2018-20) of Commission B - Fields and Waves of the U.S. National Committee of International Union of Radio Science"

McCormick News Article