Residence London (UK) Citizenship Dual UK/USA | Fields Space physics Name Steven Schwartz | |
Born September 15, 1951
Warren, PA, USA ( 1951-09-15 ) Institutions Imperial College London Alma mater Cornell University
Cambridge University | ||
Steven Jay Schwartz is a Professor of Space Physics at Imperial College London. He was awarded the Chapman Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 2006 "in recognition of his pioneering work in solar terrestrial physics and space plasma physics". In 2009, he became the Head of the Space and Atmospheric Physics Group at Imperial College London.
Schwartz is responsible for refuting the belief that cosmic rays trapped by self-excited turbolence within a supernova remnant cool irreversibly as the remnant expands. He has also significantly contributed to theoretical and observational analysis of collisionless shocks within the heliosphere. His work on the "quasi-parallel shock", the component of the Earth's bow shock believed to be responsible for particle heating and acceleration, first theorized in the early 1990s, was later confirmed by observations from the Cluster spacecraft.
Schwartz is the UK Project Scientist for the UK Cluster Science Centre, Co-Investigator for the PEACE electron instrumentation, CIS ion instrument and the FGM magnetometer.