NorthWest Research Associates

Karin Dissauer received the 2025 Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award from the Solar-Terrestrial Sciences Division of the European Geosciences Union (GSU) for outstanding research in solar and extra-solar space weather research.

“Karin Dissauer has become as one of the most prominent Early Career Scientists of her generation in the field of solar and extra-solar space weather research. She received her PhD in 2018 from the University of Graz, Austria and after being as postdoctoral researcher for a few years at Graz and NorthWest Research Associates (NWRA), Boulder, she was promoted as a full research scientist at the NWRA.

In her research, Dissauer has focused on analyzing the relationships between coronal dimmings and solar/stellar eruptions (coronal mass ejections and flares). Dissauer’s recent work has in particular highlighted the importance of small-scale magnetic activity in the corona and chromosphere before flaring takes place and differences between flaring and non-flaring active regions. She has also developed new methods for detecting coronal dimmings by using interdisciplinary statistical approaches from other fields. Dissauer has nearly 40 papers in the refereed journals in the field and she has given invited talks. She is very active in the scientific community, including being part of NASA/ESA mission teams and in the public outreach. Despite being in the early career phase, Dissauer is the Principal Investigator of several significant research projects and she co-leads an International Space Science Institute (ISSI) team.”

https://www.egu.eu/awards-meda...

Well Deserved, Karin!!

Joe joined NWRA 1 April 2025. He will be working with LJ Nickisch’s group on ionospheric modeling and radio wave propagation physics as well as developing new research programs of his own.

Joe received his PhD in 2018 from CU in Aerospace Engineering under Dr. Hanspeter Schaub. His thesis was titled, “Dynamics of Complex Spacecraft Subject to Forced and Environmental Charging.” While in school, he interned at NASA Wallops and AFRL in Albuquerque. After graduating he joined Orion Space Solutions in Louisville, CO.

Not only is Joe well connected with our AFRL sponsors, he is also familiar with the LJ Team’s work, having performed previous studies with NWRA's assimilative ionospheric modeling capability GPSII and HF propagation capability HiCIRF.

Please welcome Joe!