Biography

Manuel Enrique Cuesta is a researcher whose research interests include space plasma turbulence, specifically in the solar wind. The solar wind acts as a natural laboratory for space plasma studies, allowing numerous spacecraft to probe its environment, providing in situ measurements of an unreproducible medium today. Manuel’s primary research focuses on understanding the fundamental dynamics of the solar wind and its radial evolution through interplanetary space. He completed his Ph.D. in Physics at the University of Delaware. For his thesis, Manuel worked on the radial evolution of turbulence intermittency in the solar wind in comparison to well-known quantities in hydrodynamic turbulence, as well as anisotropy and compressibility. From comparisons to wind tunnel dynamics, a major result of his work shows that the solar wind, to a certain extent, behaves as a wind tunnel. This work involved the analysis of in situ data collected by NASA’s Parker Solar Probe (PSP), Helios 1, Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE), Wind, and Voyager 1. At Princeton, Manuel is currently working as a member of the Integrated Science Investigations of the Sun (IS⊙IS)/PSP team to study the source, transport, and acceleration of solar energetic particles in the inner heliosphere.

Research Interests:

• Solar wind
• Energetic Particles 
• Turbulence