Tuija Pulkkinen

Biosketch

Tuija Pulkkinen received her Ph.D. degree in theoretical physics from the University of Helsinki in Finland. She is currently the Professor and Chair of the Department of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering at the University of Michigan. She has worked previously as Dean and Vice President for Research and Innovation at Aalto University, and as Research Professor at the Finnish Meteorological Institute. She has held numerous positions in international and national scientific organizations including presidency of the European Geosciences Union and Council of the Committee for Space Research (COSPAR), and the Committee for Solar and Space Research under the US Space Studies Board. She has also served in several functions for research funding organizations and university assessments.

Research Interests

Prof. Pulkkinen's research interests focus on the plasma physics of the Sun-Earth system. Her current research focuses on the use of the University of Michigan Space Weather Modeling Framework to resolve the physical processes responsible for driving the plasma dynamics and energetic particle acceleration in the near-Earth space. In particular, she focuses on the energy transfer from the solar wind plasma flowing past the Earth through the magnetic boundary generated by the internal geomagnetic field, and the energy flow through the magnetosphere into the ionized upper atmosphere. The numerical simulations and the quantitative methods to assess the energy flow paths help improve our ability to forecast space weather hazards posed as well to spacecraft in orbit as ground-based (power transmission and other) infrastructure.