Craig Edward DeForest
| Craig Edward DeForest | |
|---|---|
 DeForest in 2013 | |
| Born |
August 13, 1968 (age 48) San Diego, California, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Reed College (B.A.), Stanford University (Ph.D.) |
| Occupation | Astrophysicist |
| Known for | Solar Physicist |
Craig Edward DeForest (born August 13, 1968) is an American solar physicist. He leads the heliophysics research group at the Boulder, Colorado offices of the Southwest Research Institute and holds an adjunct faculty position at the University of Colorado, Boulder. His wide-ranging contributions to the field of experimental astrophysics of the Sun include: early work on the MSSTA, a sounding rocket that prototyped modern normal-incidence EUV optics such as are used on the Solar Dynamics Observatory; his discovery of sound waves in the solar corona in 1998;[1] standardization of computer vision techniques that are used to measure and track magnetic fields on the solar surface;[2] co-invention with colleague Charles Kankelborg of the fluxon semi-Lagrangian approach to numerical MHD modeling;[3] and pioneering work on quantitative remote sensing of the solar wind via Thomson scattered light.[4]
DeForest is noted outside the heliophysics science community for his contributions to open-source software, in particular PDL and Audacity; and for his extensive work on science outreach to the public. He was the Press Officer of the American Astronomical Society's Solar Physics Division from 1999 to 2016, when he stepped down, to be replaced by Henry "Trae" Winter.
References
- ↑ Observation of Quasi-Periodic Compressive Waves in Solar Polar Plumes, Astrophys. J. 501, 217
- ↑ Solar Magnetic Tracking. I. Software Comparison and Recommended Practices, Astrophys. J. 666, 576.
- ↑ Fluxon Modeling of Low-Beta Plasmas, J. Atmospheric & Solar-Terrestrial Physics, 69, 116.
- ↑ NASA press release on CME tracking, 2011