Jan J. Sojka

Jan Sojka was born in Duns, U.K. in 1950. He received the B.S. degree in natural philosophy from The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, U.K., in 1972, and the Ph.D. degree in space physics from University College London, London, U.K, in 1976. He attended Galashiels Academy (GA), Galashiels, U.K. His doctoral and post-doctoral works were carried out at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, Dorking, U.K., which involved the study of the aurora from observations made by sounding rockets and magnetospheric plasma phenomenon from the European Space Agency’s GEOS-I and GEOS-II Satellites. He has chaired several NSF Discipline Working Groups and NASA STDT Teams, is a Trustee of the Utah NASA Space Grant Consortium, and was a Dean of the Heliophysics Summer School, Boulder, CO, USA. Since 1978, he has been engaged in computational modeling and theory of the ionosphere with the Center for Atmospheric and Space Sciences, Utah State University, Logan, UT, USA, where he is also a Professor of physics and the Head of the Physics Department. He is also a Part Owner of Space Environment Corporation, Logan, UT, USA, an applications-oriented space weather corporation. He has authored over 250 scientific papers, given over 450 talks, and coedited a book on Heliophysics. Dr. Sojka was a recipient of the Oliver Medal for Science (GA), the D. Wynne Thorne Research Award (USU), and the Utah Carnegie Professor of the Year Award for excellence in teaching.