Konstantinos Horaites
Space Scientist
CV PUBLICATIONS CODE
The Space Physics Postdoc Survey is CLOSED!
I co-wrote a survey to measure the working conditions and career prospects of non-permanent researchers in space physics. The survey closed on Jan. 11 2025 with 118 respondents! Thank you if you participated, we are working to report the results this year.
View the survey questions at: https://redcap.helsinki.fi/redcap/surveys/?s=TCPL4WJJCMFAYJDM
See also my talk from the session ED11B - Reenvisioning the Postdoctoral Experience in Earth and Space Sciences at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) 2024 conference.
About Me
I'm a Research Scientist specializing in solar wind physics at CIRES, CU-Boulder. I work in the magnetometer group (led by Paul Loto'aniu), which is responsible for magnetic field measurements of several NOAA satellites. These operational measurements are used to forecast "space weather": eruptions from the Sun that can reach Earth and have several negative impacts on our electrical technology---for example satellites, power grids, and the radio signals used in GPS and telecommunications.
I worked for 3+ years at the University of Helsinki, as a postdoc in the Vlasiator team (PI Prof. Minna Palmroth). I used computer simulations to assess the space weather impact of a large solar storm.
I did my first postdoc at LASP in Boulder, CO, USA as a member of Laila Andersson's group. There I studied the kinetic physics of electrons in Mars's magnetosheath.
I received my PhD in Physics (2019) from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. I wrote my thesis, "Theory and Observations of Runaway Electrons in the Solar Wind", under the advisement of Prof. Stanislav Boldyrev.
I got my start at UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Lab, where I studied the solar wind as part of Prof. Stuart Bale's group.
Presentations
Some of my talks and poster presentations are highlighted below.
Martian Magnetosheath Electrons
Solar Wind Halo and the Ambipolar Potential
Magnetopause Oscillations
Solar Wind Strahl
Hybrid-Vlasov Simulation Validation
Solar Wind Kinetic Instabilities
Self-Similar Electron Distributions
Teaching
Teaching Assistant (University of Helsinki): FYS2016/2017--Electrodynamics, Spring 2024 (course description)
Lecturer (CU-Boulder): Astronomy 2600--Intro to Scientific Programming, Summer 2020 (course description)
Teaching Assistant (UW Madison): Physics 202--Electricity and Magnetism, Fall 2015-Summer 2017
Data
As part of my thesis project I restored the high-resolution data from the Wind satellite's SWE Strahl detector. The data are now archived on CDAWeb, where you can also browse summary GIFs like this.
Other
Check out the board game I co-designed, titled "Co-op"! Published through the Gamecrafter, LLC website.
