Staff spotlight: Professor David Burgess

Professor Burgess’ research interests are in the areas of: Space and astrophysical plasma physics, Shocks in collisionless plasmas, turbulence and particle acceleration in collisionless plasmas and large scale, highly parallel plasma simulation 

He is interested in how we can use plasma physics to study natural plasmas, such as the solar wind which blows through the Heliosphere. The space environment motivates much of his work, because we can measure these plasmas in situ, with a spacecraft acting like a probe into the plasma - getting ground truth that is practically impossible for other distant astrophysical objects. At the same time what we learn from solar system plasmas can be applied to remote astrophysical environments such as super nova remnant shocks and the interstellar medium. This area of research depends on data from international space missions supported by ESA and NASA, and Professor Burgess has collaborative links with groups across Europe and the USA. 

Most of Professor Burgess’ work is theoretical and uses large-scale computer simulations, but he also works using analysis of space craft data. He is involved with several future space missions and is a Science Co-Investigator on three instruments on the ESA Solar Orbiter mission, and Science Collaborator on the FIELDS experiment of Solar Probe Plus