Michele Dougherty

Michele Dougherty

Michele Dougherty

Michele Dougherty addressing the April 2015 meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society
Born Michele Karen Dougherty
1962 (age 54–55)[1]
South Africa
Residence London
Fields
Institutions Imperial College London
Alma mater University of Natal (PhD)[2]
Doctoral students
  • Jack Cutler[3]
  • Daniel Went[4]
Known for Magnetometer instrumentation for the Cassini-Huygens mission
Notable awards
Website
imperial.ac.uk/people/m.dougherty

Michele Karen Dougherty FRS[6] (born 1962)[1][7] is a Professor of Space Physics at Imperial College London.[8][9] She is leading unmanned exploratory missions to Saturn and Jupiter and is Principal Investigator for J-MAG - a magnetometer for the JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) of the European Space Agencies (ESA) due for launch June 2022.[9]

Education

Dougherty was educated at the University of Natal where she was awarded a PhD in 1989 for research on wave-particle interactions in dispersive and anisotropic media.[10]

Research

Amongst other important findings, her work led to the discovery of an atmosphere containing water and hydrocarbons around Saturn’s moon Enceladus — opening up new possibilities in the search for extraterrestrial life.[6][11][12]

She is distinguished "for her scientific leadership of the international NASA-ESA-ASI Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and its moons". As Principal Investigator of the operation, data collection and analysis of observations from the magnetic field instrument on board the Cassini spacecraft, she strongly contributed to improve our understanding of Saturn and the Moons of Saturn.[3][4][13][14][15][16]

Before working on the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft, Dougherty was involved in the magnetometer team for the Jupiter analysis of the Ulysses mission. She was also Guest Investigator on the NASA Jupiter System Data Analysis Program as part of the Galileo unmanned spacecraft.[17]

Awards and honours

Dougherty won the 2008 Hughes Medal[18] of the Royal Society "for innovative use of magnetic field data that led to discovery of an atmosphere around one of Saturn's moons and the way it revolutionised our view of the role of planetary moons in the Solar System".

Dougherty was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2012[6] and was recognized by the UK Science Council as one of the 100 top UK living scientists.[19] She was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society for geophysics in 2017.[5] She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (FRAS).

References

  1. 1 2 DOUGHERTY, Prof. Michele Karen. ukwhoswho.com. Who's Who. 2016 (online Oxford University Press ed.). A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc. (subscription required)
  2. ↑ Anon (2013). "UKZN alumnus awarded for her excellence in science". ukzn.ac.za. University of Natal. Archived from the original on 2013-03-17. Retrieved 2013-03-17.
  3. 1 2 Cutler, Jack (2014). The Kelvin-Helmholtz instability on the Kronian magnetopause (PhD thesis). Imperial College London.
  4. 1 2 Went, Daniel Robert (2011). Magnetic field and plasma in Saturn's near space environment (PhD thesis). Imperial College London. OCLC 930625731.
  5. 1 2 Anon (11 January 2017). "RAS honours leading astronomers and geophysicists". ras.org.uk. Royal Astronomical Society. Retrieved 17 January 2017.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Anon (2012). "Professor Michele Dougherty FRS". royalsociety.org. London: Royal Society. Archived from the original on 2015-11-17. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:
    “All text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.” --"Royal Society Terms, conditions and policies". Archived from the original on September 25, 2015. Retrieved 2016-03-09.
  7. ↑ "Michele Dougherty, British astrophysicist". Science Photo Library. 2008. Retrieved 27 September 2016.
  8. ↑ "Professor Michele Dougherty, Professor of Space Physics, Imperial College London". Archived from the original on 2012-04-20.
  9. 1 2 Al-Khalili, Jim (2017). "Michele Dougherty interview". bbc.co.uk. BBC Radio 4. from The Life Scientific
    The Cassini mission into deep space has sent back some wonderful colour images of Saturn. It's witnessed raging storms, flown between its enigmatic rings and revealed seven new moons. And, thanks in no small part to Professor Michelle Dougherty - it's made some astonishing discoveries.
  10. ↑ Karen Dougherty, Michele (1988). Wave-particle interactions in dispersive and anisotropic media (PhD thesis). University of Natal. OCLC 890036806.
  11. ↑ Gladstone, G. R.; Waite, J. H.; Grodent, D.; Lewis, W. S.; Crary, F. J.; Elsner, R. F.; Weisskopf, M. C.; Majeed, T.; Jahn, J.-M.; Bhardwaj, A.; Clarke, J. T.; Young, D. T.; Dougherty, M. K.; Espinosa, S. A.; Cravens, T. E. (2002). "A pulsating auroral X-ray hot spot on Jupiter". Nature. 415 (6875): 1000–1003. PMID 11875561. doi:10.1038/4151000a.
  12. ↑ Backes, H. (2005). "Titan's Magnetic Field Signature During the First Cassini Encounter". Science. New York: American Association for the Advancement of Science. 308 (5724): 992–995. PMID 15890875. doi:10.1126/science.1109763.
  13. ↑ Arridge, C. S.; Eastwood, J. P.; Jackman, C. M.; Poh, G.-K.; Slavin, J. A.; Thomsen, M. F.; André, N.; Jia, X.; Kidder, A.; Lamy, L.; Radioti, A.; Reisenfeld, D. B.; Sergis, N.; Volwerk, M.; Walsh, A. P.; Zarka, P.; Coates, A. J.; Dougherty, M. K. (2015). "Cassini in situ observations of long-duration magnetic reconnection in Saturn’s magnetotail". Nature Physics. 12 (3): 268–271. arXiv:1512.06980 Freely accessible. doi:10.1038/nphys3565.
  14. ↑ Crary, F. J.; Clarke, J. T.; Dougherty, M. K.; Hanlon, P. G.; Hansen, K. C.; Steinberg, J. T.; Barraclough, B. L.; Coates, A. J.; Gérard, J.-C.; Grodent, D.; Kurth, W. S.; Mitchell, D. G.; Rymer, A. M.; Young, D. T. (2005). "Solar wind dynamic pressure and electric field as the main factors controlling Saturn's aurorae". Nature. 433 (7027): 720–722. doi:10.1038/nature03333.
  15. ↑ Bunce, E. J.; Arridge, C. S.; Clarke, J. T.; Coates, A. J.; Cowley, S. W. H.; Dougherty, M. K.; Gérard, J.-C.; Grodent, D.; Hansen, K. C.; Nichols, J. D.; Southwood, D. J.; Talboys, D. L. (2008). "Origin of Saturn's aurora: Simultaneous observations by Cassini and the Hubble Space Telescope". Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics. 113 (A9): n/a–n/a. ISSN 0148-0227. doi:10.1029/2008JA013257.
  16. ↑ Espinosa, Stéphane A.; Dougherty, Michele K. (2000). "Periodic perturbations in Saturn's magnetic field". Geophysical Research Letters. 27 (17): 2785–2788. doi:10.1029/2000GL000048.
  17. ↑ Anon (2000). "Michele Dougherty FRS Home Page". ic.ac.uk. London.
  18. ↑ "List of 21st century winners of the Hughes Medal". royalsociety.org.
  19. ↑ Jackson, Caroline (2014). "Congratulations Professor Michele Dougherty - named in top 100 Scientists". imperial.ac.uk.
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