09/20/2021
By Joanne Gagnon-Ketchen
Ofer Cohen, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, University of Massachusetts Lowell will give a talk on "Heliophysics Across the Universe."
Abstract: Heliophysics, or Space Physics, is the study of the medium between the Sun and the planets in our solar system, and the medium between stars and their planets. The space between stars and their planets is filled with a continuous outflow of plasma - the "solar wind", and this outflow can impact the top of the atmospheres of planets on a short- and long-range. Moreover, the interaction can be affected if the planet has an internal magnetic field. In my talk, I will review what Heliophysics is, and will present two specific applications - studies of space weather on Earth and studying how Heliophysics impacts exoplanets habitability.
Bio: Ofer Cohen received his B.Sc and M.Sc degrees from Tel-Aviv University in Israel, and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, graduating in 2008. He was an NSF fellow and later an Astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics from 2008 before joining UMass Lowell in 2016. During his graduate studies Professor Cohen developed a cutting-edge numerical model to study the solar corona and the solar wind. He continued to work on studies of the solar corona, but at the same time began to implement his solar model of other stars in order to study stellar astrophysics problems, such as the spindown and mass-loss rates of low-mass stars. In addition, Professor Cohen has been implementing models that have been developed to connect the Earth and solar system objects to the study of exoplanets. This approach provided a much more realistic view on exoplanets and their characteristics. Professor Cohen has established himself as an interdisciplinary researcher who works on many topics falling within the range of planetary science, heliophysics, solar physics and astrophysics. He has served as a scientific reviewer in many review panels of NASA and the NSF, a long list of scientific journals and graduate student and postdoc review panels.