Jim Raines

Professional Responsibilities and Interests

I work with two research groups and my work varies between the two:

•  Solar and Heliospheric Physics Research Group

This group develops theories of the sun and the solar wind, builds plasma instruments to measure properties of these and uses the resultant data to verify the theories and as inspiration for new ones.  We currently have operating instruments on three spacecraft, ACE, WIND and Ulysses.  Click on the group name (above) to go to our extensive web site details.

I am responsible for operations for a number of instruments: SWICS and SWIMS on ACE and SWICS, MASS and STICS on WIND .  I develop software to deal with the data on various levels, from reading and low-level processing to higher level  analysis of species abundance and events.  I also manage a number of undergraduates and keep the Red Hat Linux cluster running.
 

•  High Resolution Doppler Imager (HRDI) group

This group uses the High Resolution Doppler Imager (HRDI) on the UARS spacecraft to measure the winds in the upper atmosphere, via the doppler shift of A band (visible) spectral lines emitted by the atmospheric oxygen as it absorbs energy from the sun.  Other information such as the temperature of the upper atmosphere can also be recovered from these measurements.

Of note, the UARS spacecraft was made famous in the 1990's for monitoring the stratospheric ozone hole (using other instruments).

In this group, I keep tabs on the instrument's operation, manage a number of undergraduates and keep the early 90's vintage OpenVMS cluster (yes, I'm serious) running.

Education and Employment History

Personal Interests