Ryan Milligan

I am currently a research associate at the Catholic University of America in Washington DC working through NASA's Goddard Flight Centre, and a visiting fellow and alumnus of Queen's University Belfast. My research combines space-based observations of solar flares from the Ramaty High-Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) mission, a NASA Small Explorer designed to investigate energy release and particle acceleration during solar flares through X-ray and gamma-ray observations, with those from ground-based instruments such as ROSA (Rapid Oscillations in the Solar Atmosphere).

I am also working on combining RHESSI observations with other space-based solar observatories (such as SOHO, TRACE, Hinode, STEREO and SDO) to investigate the consequences of this energy release.

My current research includes the analysis of EUV data from the EVE instrument on SDO to investigate the driving mechanism behind geoeffective irradiance during solar flares; the statistical properties of X-ray flares using GOES observations from the past three solar cycles; investigating the process of chromospheric evaporation using the EIS instrument on Hinode; and the dynamics of plasmoid sources in coronal current sheets during CME initiation using STEREO data.

I am also one of four Chief Observers for the Max Millennium Program for Solar Flare Research and I co-administer The Sun Today website which promotes awareness of solar activity and space weather to the general public.