I
am currently [2006] at the University of British Columbia. My research is
now focused on the determinants of subjective well being -- the
"economics of happiness", which may provide a new policy perspective
(to complement economic efficiency) and be less in conflict with environmental imperatives.
In 2002 I left my research work to pursue a
new and more activist career. I maintain an active interest in space
physics; please don't hesitate to contact me about anything below.
 
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During 2000-2002 I pursued postdoctoral research working under Bob Lin, director of the Space Sciences Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. I was funded by NASA's RHESSI mission, a remarkable new satellite which launched in February 2002 and is used to study solar flares (and other stuff) in the x-ray and gamma-ray regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. One of my interests was the possibility of detecting terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs) [PDF poster] with RHESSI, which is now being realised with great success [2005] and ongoing excitement. |
In
September 2000 I finished my PhD in the Applied
Physics department of Stanford
University. You can see my c.v.
in PDF format and a separate list of publications.
I
graduated in June, 1995 with an undergraduate degree from the Physics Department at MIT, located in Cambridge,
MA, U.S.A.
My thoroughly enjoyable PhD work was supervised by Umran
Inan in the STAR
Lab's VLF
Group. Sprites, elves (read my primer),
jets, and
terrestrial gamma-ray flashes have received much press. I keep a
collection of online
press
relating to our work.
My work has related mostly to optical
measurements of
elves
and sprites, along with supporting modeling. I spent 1996-7 building
an instrument called the "Fly's
Eye."
This field work has
taken
me to Langmuir Lab in
New
Mexico during the summers of 97
and
98. There I was privileged to work with Mark Stanley.
In 1998 we also observed sprites through a
telescope and have successfully captured the highest-resolution images
of
sprite structure to date; see Langmuir 1998.
My
dissertation
in PDF format [9 MB] is online. You can view
just the abstract. Please contact me if you have any
difficulties accessing these.
Electromagnetic simulation codes and analysis software
from the dissertation is available if you ask.
One of the many fun things about working with Very Low Frequency (VLF)
electromagnetics is that we (humans) can listen to the radio waves
(converted into audio vibrations) at their
natural frequencies. Here is a collection of sounds from the
magnetosphere (not yet).
I was fortunate enough to be
involved with field work to the Antarctic plateau in November -
December 1997. There I helped upgrade some instrumentation at our AGO sites. I worked with a team from the
Antarctic Support
Associates. I made some notes
for my group on that trip. In 2000 I had the
astonishing privilege to visit the site of our investigations at Palmer Station and my trip report
is available in PDF
and in
HTML
formats. There are also photos from both trips in my online photo album.
Some
useful bookmarks: The table of Fundamental
Constants. Here also is a beautiful
periodic table of the
elements. Here is a wonderful dictionary of physics (including unit
definitions) called The
Laws List; but
here are better unit
definitions. Here is the APS
for some other
physics-related resources. Here is Science Magazine. And here is the APS Focus!.
Here
is the
ENCYCLOPAEDIA
BRITANNICA online! I love it! Another wonderful reflection of
open, accumulating (and up to date and with style and wit) human
knowledge is Eric Weisstein's MathWorld!