Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Sciences, College of Engineering, University of Michigan

Michael W. Liemohn

Associate Professor
PhD Admissions Committee Chair

Office:
1436 SRB
Phone:
(734) 763-6229
Fax:
(734) 647-3083
Email:
liemohn@umich.edu
[ Link to website ]
Education:

Ph.D., M.S., Atmospheric and Space Science, University of Michigan, 1997

B.S., Physics and Math, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, 1992
Research:

Plasma transport in the ionosphere and magnetosphere of the Earth and other solar system bodies

Personal Introduction

I am the chair of the Graduate Admissions Committee for AOSS.  If you are a prospective PhD student, please feel free to email me (or Margaret Reid, margreid@umich.edu) with any questions about the program, funding opportunities, the University of Michigan, or living in Ann Arbor.

Specializations and Research Interests

  • Energetic particle transport in the Earth's inner magnetosphere
  • Kinetic theory and modeling
  • Interactions between hot and cold plasma components
  • Plasmaspheric dynamics and modeling
  • Ring current dynamics and modeling
  • Global magnetospheric dynamics and modeling
  • Plasma wave excitation and wave-particle interactions

Honors, Awards and Accomplishments

  • PhD committees chaired or co-chaired:  4 successfully defended (Xiaohua Fang, Jichun Zhang, Xia Cai, and Raluca Ilie) and 4 in progress (Shannon Curry, Roxanne Katus, Blake Johnson, and Shaosui Xu)
  • Awarded National Research Council Resident Research Associateship at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
  • Awarded NASA Graduate Student Research Fellowship
  • Outstanding Student Paper Award, American Geophysical Union
  • Refereed papers for leading peer-reviewed journals in space science and proposals for NASA and NSF
  • Dissertation was first self-consistent calculation of ineterhemispheric photoelectron transport through plasmasphere, from ionospheric sources to scattering into the geomagnetic trap.
  • With Dr. George Khazanov and others, developed method to solve the Vlasov equation in an arbitrary electric potential structure
  • With Dr. Janet Kozyra and others, conclusively showed that the initial decay rate of the stormtime ring current is dominated by dayside outflow
  • With Dr. Khazanov and others, developed first local time dependent global model of relativistic electron transport, for uses such as simulating artificial beam injections and the Van Allen radiation belts

Professional Service

  • NAS/NRC Decadal Strategy for Solar and Space Physics, SWMI Panel and Education Working Group
  • Chair, NSF GEM Steering Committee, 2009 - 2011
  • NASA Living With a Star TR&T Steering Committee, 2007 - 2009
  • Chair, NASA Geospace Management and Operations Working Group (G-MOWG), 2005 - 2007
  • Research Area Coordinator, NSF GEM Program, Inner magnetoshpere/Storms Campaign, 2003 - 2009
  • Chair, AOSS Graduate Program committee, 2009 - present
  • Chair, Graduate student recruitment committee, AOSS Department, 2006 - present

Publications

As of March 2012, author or co-author of 120 peer-reviewed publications in print, press, or submitted (42 first author) and 366 scientific presentations (63 invited).

Please see my CV (link above) or my detailed work website (also a link above) for more information about my publications and research activities.

Updated: 2012-03-29