Nationality American Name Barbara Thompson Fields Astrophysics | Institutions NASA Role Physicist Institution NASA | |
Alma mater University of Pennsylvania, University of Minnesota | ||
Barbara J Thompson is an American solar physicist. She is a scientist working as a civil servant at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. She is noted for wide-ranging contributions to the study of eruptive phenomena in the solar corona, beginning with the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory mission in the 1990s. Early work included EUV imaging studies of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and their aftermath, including discovery of a global coronal wave response to the launch of CMEs ("EIT waves"). She was a major organizer of the global International Heliophysical Year effort to study external drivers of planetary environments (including Earth's). Thompson was the Project Scientist for NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory mission through development and early flight, and continues to hold a major role in that mission, while conducting ongoing research into CME onset and propagation.