Mergen Alimaganbetov is a Postdoctoral Research Associate interested in spacecraft instrumentation design, and theoretical and experimental space physics.

He graduated from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, Florida, with a doctoral degree in Engineering Physics. His scope focused on the Physics of Plasma in Space. Mergen’s dissertation titled “Ultra-Low Frequency Waves at Middle Latitudes During Substorms: Observations and Modeling” focused on data analysis and simulation of the ULF waves in the solar wind at the L1 Lagrange point, and in the Earth’s magnetosphere and ionosphere at three different latitudes. Ionospheric Feedback Instability is studied in detail in the context of magnetosphere-ionosphere interactions.

At Princeton Space Physics Group, Mergen is working on the mechanical design and analysis of the Solar Wind and Pickup Ions (SWAPI), an instrument onboard the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) developed at Princeton University by the Space Physics Group. Other research areas of interest for Mergen include the simulation of energetic beams in ion sources in the SIMION simulation package and the design of the associated hardware.

Before Princeton, Mergen also worked in the national aerospace industry of Kazakhstan as a Mechanical and Simulation Engineer at JV “Ghalam” LLP, a subsidiary of the national company JSC “Kazakhstan Gharysh Sapary”. His projects involved mechanical analysis of ground antennae structures and antennae feed design in ANSYS 3D High-Frequency Simulation Software. Mergen Alimaganbetov obtained his Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering at Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan.