Who's Who
Louis A. Frank
is the Carver/James A.Van Allen Professor of Physics at The University of
Iowa, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1964. He received
his bachelor's degree in 1960, his master's in 1961, and his doctorate in
1964, all from the University of Iowa. He has been an experimenter,
co-investigator, or principal investigator on 42 spacecraft for which he
has designed instruments to examine such phenomena as energetic charged
particles, space plasmas (or thin gases), and--with the use of specially
designed cameras--Earth's auroras.
Dr. Frank is the principal investigator for the auroral imaging
instruments for the Dynamics Explorer Mission, the plasma instrumentation
for the Galileo Mission to Jupiter, the U.S. plasma instrumentation for
the Japanese Geotail spacecraft, and the camera for visible wavelength
light for the Polar spacecraft of the International Solar Terrestrial
Physics (ISTP) Program.
His publications in professional journals include such topics as the
first direct measurements of the terrestrial ring current and of the
polar cusp, the current systems in Earth's magnetotail, the plasma tori
(or donut-shaped rings) at Jupiter and at Saturn, and the global imaging
of Earth's auroral zones and atmosphere. He is also the author of
The Big Splash,
published in 1990, about the discovery of small comets.
His current research interests include magnetospheric plasma in the
vicinity of Earth, wave-plasma instabilities, active experiments in the
ionosphere, interpretation of auroral images in terms of global
convection and current systems, the Jovian magnetosphere and relationship
with the Galilean satellites, computer tomography, geocoronal hydrogen,
comets and optics.
He has served on various NASA and National Academy of Sciences/National
Research Council committees and is a Fellow of the American Physical
Society, a member of the American Astronomical Society, American
Association for the Advancement of Science and the International Academy
of Astronautics. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and a
recipient of the National Space Act Award.
The VIS is an imaging system that captures pictures of Earth's auroras,
dayglow, ozone layer and nightglow in visible and ultraviolet light at
the rate of about 5,000 images per day. Dr. Sigwarth designed the VIS low
resolution and medium resolution optics, and the optical relays for the
three sensors vital to the imager. Also, he is responsible for the
analysis, manufacture and testing of the VIS optical systems. He
designed the VIS optical calibration setup, wrote instrument test
procedures, developed image analysis software, completed calibration
tests and performed analysis of the calibration data.
As VIS project scientist, he has day-to-day oversight responsibility for
all aspects of the project, including direction of development team
tasks, personnel management, and interaction with NASA officials. He
also participates in post-launch operations and has a lead role in
scientific analysis of VIS images.
His research interests include the study of small comets and their
effects on the solar system. He has analyzed the Dynamics Explorer-1
global images to infer the fundamental characteristics of small comets
and the signature of their impact in Earth's atmosphere. He has
organized the Dynamic Explorer imaging team's participation in the
Environmental Reactions Induced by Comets (ERIC) sounding rocket project,
in which cameras aboard DE-l photographed the release of water by
sounding rockets on three occasions.
Dr. Sigwarth is a member of the American Geophysical Union.
John B. Sigwarth
is a senior research scientist at The University of Iowa, where he
currently serves as project scientist for the Visible Imaging System
(VIS), one of 11 instruments on board the Polar spacecraft. He received
his doctorate in 1989 from the University of Iowa.
Photos by Tom Jorgensen, The University of Iowa
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