Biography

Nathan Schwadron is a visiting professor at Princeton University. Nathan Schwadron is a Presidential Chair and the Norman S. and Anna Marie Waite Professor of Physics at the University of New Hampshire (UNH). Dr.  Schwadron has served on numerous NASA and National Academy of Sciences (NAS) committees such as the NASA Sun-Earth Connection Advisory Subcommittee, the 2009 Heliophysics Mission Planning Working Group, the NAS Committee for Solar and Space Physics, and the NAS Geospace Portfolio Review Committee. Dr. Schwadron chaired the NASA Living with a Star Steering Committee and is the creator and lead of the New England Space Science Consortium. Professor Schwadron is the editor of Heliosphere News. Professor Schwadron was elected fellow of the AAAS in 2012 and has received many notable awards, among them the 2018 Award for Excellence in Research at the University of New Hampshire, the NASA National Graduate Student Research Fellow, the University of Michigan, Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences Outstanding Achievement in Research Award and the Ulysses Achievement Award - 15 Years in Orbit. He has received numerous NASA Group Achievement Awards as a member of the New Horizons Spacecraft Development Team, the Lunar Reconnaissance Observatory, and the Interstellar Boundary Explorer Mission. Nathan Schwadron was one of the lead authors for “The Solar System beyond Neptune”, which won first place in the cosmology/astronomy category of the American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence. 

Research Interests

Dr. Schwadron studies the effects of radiation, acceleration of energetic particles and cosmic rays, origins of solar and stellar winds, X-rays produced in the solar system, the boundaries of our solar system, and the local interstellar medium. Professor Schwadron leads a number of theoretical and modeling investigations including the Earth-Moon-Mars Radiation Environment Modules, the PREDICCS project, and the Corona-Solar Wind Energetic Particle Acceleration (C-SWEPA). Dr. Schwadron was a Co-PI on the NSF Sun-2-Ice project. Nathan Schwadron is extensively involved in NASA missions including the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter on which he was the Principal Investigator of the Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation, the Interstellar Boundary Explorer Mission on which he leads the Science Operations Center, the Solar Probe Plus Mission on which he leads a Science Operations Center of two of the instruments, New Horizons, Ulysses, Advanced Composition Explorer, Wind and Cassini. Dr. Schwadron is a deputy principal investigator on the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP), and the lead for IMAP-Lo instrument. 

Professor Schwadron has authored over 310 scientific papers in the refereed literature spanning topics in heliospheric, solar, planetary science, astrophysics, and magnetospheric science, as well as space instrument and mission development. His publications appear in Science, Nature, Space Weather Journal, Astrophysical Journal, Journal of Geophysical Research, Geophysical Research Letters, Space Science Reviews, Astrophysical Journal Letters. These papers have generated over 10,700 citations, with h=55 - see Google Scholar.

Teaching

Professor Schwadron teaches courses at the University of New Hampshire ranging from basic physics, astronomy, graduate level statistical physics and classical mechanics. Dr. Schwadron previously taught courses in Astronomy, Heliospheric Physics, and Space Science at Boston University and taught Space Science at the University of Michigan. Dr. Schwadron advises a group of graduate students and was a coach in the UNH Writing Academy.