Alexander Klimas, Senior Research Scientist

GEST Research Group:

Heliophysics and Solar System Divisions

GSFC Code:

670.0

Mailing Address:

Heliophysics Division
Building 26, Room 138
NASA GSFC, Code 670.0
Greenbelt, MD 20771 USA

Phone:

(301) 286-3682

Fax:

Email:

alex.klimas@nasa.gov

Research Interests:

Magnetic reconnection; Plasma turbulence; Critical phenomena in plasma systems

Most Current Publication:

Klimas, A., M. Hesse, and S. Zenitani (2008), Particle-in-cell simulation of collisionless reconnection with open outflow boundaries, Phys. Plasmas, 15 (8), 082102, doi:10.1063/1.2965826.

Biography:

Dr. Alexander Klimas received B. S. and S.M. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1962 and his Ph.D. from the same institute in 1966. He joined ARAP, Inc., Princeton, New Jersey in 1966 where he worked on the theory of plasma transport with particular attention to cosmic ray transport in turbulent magnetic fields. Dr. Klimas joined the Goddard Space Flight Center as a National Research Council Senior Resident Research Associate in 1973 where he continued his cosmic ray transport studies. He joined the staff at Goddard Space Flight Center in 1975. In the early 80's, Dr. Klimas's attention was drawn to the theory and simulation of electrostatic plasma phenomena. He studied the electron plasma phenomena of Earth's foreshock and the fundamentally nonlinear BGK type solitary wave modes associated with the late evolution of beams in collisionless plasmas. Later, Dr. Klimas turned to the methods of the emerging science of nonlinear dynamics to understand the nonlinear response of Earth's magnetosphere to varying conditions in the solar wind. This work evolved into studies of the non-equilibrium critical state of Earth's magnetotail and its relation to the system dynamics of turbulent reconnection in the tail. Most recently, Dr. Klimas has embarked on a simulation study of the details of the collisionless magnetic reconnection mechanism. Dr. Klimas has been a principal investigator on the ISEE Guest Investigator program, the NASA Space Physics Supporting Research and Technology Program, the Sun-Earth Connection Guest Investigator program, and the Goddard Space Flight Center Director's Discretionary Fund program. He is the recipient of the NASA Special Service Award.