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Suzanne Imber

Suzie Imber
Imber at her desk at Goddard Space Flight Center in 2011
Born
Suzanne Mary Imber

May 1983 (age 41)
Aylesbury, United Kingdom
EducationBerkhamsted School
Alma materImperial College London (BSc)
University of Leicester (PhD)
Known forPlanetary science
AwardsRosalind Franklin Award (2021)
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics
InstitutionsUniversity of Leicester
Goddard Space Flight Center
ThesisAuroral and Ionospheric Flow Measurements of Magnetopause Reconnection During Intervals of Northward Interplanetary Magnetic Field (2008)
Doctoral advisorSteve Milan
Mark Lester[1]
Websitewww.suzieimber.co.uk Edit this at Wikidata

Suzanne Mary Imber (born May 1983) is a British planetary scientist specialising in space weather at the University of Leicester.[2] She was the winner of the 2017 BBC Two television programme Astronauts, Do You Have What It Takes?.

Education

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Imber was born in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire[3] and attended Berkhamsted School in Hertfordshire.[4] One highlight of her school years was winning the Lacrosse National Championships in 2000.[5] She studied a 4-year physics degree at Imperial College London, from where she graduated with a first class honours in 2005.[4] She captained the University of London Lacrosse team and went on to play for the England under-21s.[3] She undertook two internships at NASA during her time at Imperial, working in the Heliophysics Division at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, which steered her in the direction of planetary science. She completed her PhD thesis in 2008 on the Auroral and Ionospheric Flow Measurements of Magnetopause Reconnection during Intervals of Northward Interplanetary Magnetic Field, at the University of Leicester.[1]

Research and public engagement

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Imber joined the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland in 2008 as a NASA research scientist.[6] Here she studied 'space weather', contributing to the understanding of how energy and momentum from the solar wind influence the environments of the Earth and Mercury, using data from NASA and ESA spacecraft combined with ground-based observations.[6] Her supervisor and mentor was Professor Jim Slavin, who was involved with the MESSENGER mission to Mercury.[3]

In 2011 she returned to the University of Leicester as a postdoctoral research associate.[4] In 2014 she was awarded a Leverhulme Trust Fellowship, "Rough Winds do Shake the Magnetosphere of Mercury".[7] Imber is a visiting professor at the University of Michigan, as well as the only UK member of NASA's MESSENGER Science Team, in recognition of her work studying Mercury's magnetosphere. She is a co-investigator on the Mercury Imaging X-ray Spectrometer (MIXS), an instrument designed and built at the University of Leicester, currently on board the European Space Agency's Mercury mission, BepiColombo, which launched on 19 October 2018.[8] This instrument is designed to determine the composition of the surface of Mercury in unprecedented detail, aimed at resolving key questions about Mercury's formation and evolution, and will also measure Mercury's X-ray aurora, a phenomenon recently discovered by Imber's research team studying the magnetosphere of Mercury.[9]

In 2017 Imber was selected for the BBC Two's Astronauts, Do You Have What It Takes?.[10][11][12][13] She endured several challenges, including speaking Russian in a centrifuge after enduring 4.5g, taking part in emergency procedures in an undersea training facility and taking her own blood.[14] She won the competition and received a recommendation from Chris Hadfield to join the European Space Agency.[15] Since winning, Imber has launched a public engagement programme in her spare time, personally speaking with over 35,000 school children at hundreds of schools across the country, and giving over 60 public lectures in the course of 12 months. Her goal is to raise the aspirations of young people and share her journey and her enthusiasm for her career as a space scientist.[8][16][17][18]

Awards and honours

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In 2019, Imber gave the Claudia Parsons Memorial Lecture at Loughborough University.[19] In the same year, she was elected to the new post of Pro Chancellor (Students) by Leicester Students' University.[20]

She was awarded the Rosalind Franklin Award by the Royal Society in 2021 for her "achievements in the field of planetary science and her well-considered project proposal with a potential for a high impact".[21]

She was the winner of the 2017 BBC Two television programme Astronauts, Do You Have What It Takes?.[4][22]

Personal life

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Imber is a high-altitude mountaineer who has climbed peaks in Alaska, the Himalayas and the Andes, working since 2014 with British explorer Maximo Kausch.[23]

References

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  1. ^ a b Imber, Suzanne Mary (2008). Auroral and Ionospheric Flow Measurements of Magnetopause Reconnection During Intervals of Northward Interplanetary Magnetic Field. figshare.com (PhD thesis). hdl:2381/8466. OCLC 757113322. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.522480.
  2. ^ Suzanne Imber publications indexed by Google Scholar Edit this at Wikidata
  3. ^ a b c "Interview with Suzie Imber". timeshighereducation.com. Times Higher Education. 12 October 2017. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  4. ^ a b c d "Dr Suzanne Imber". Department of Physics and Astronomy. University of Leicester. 2017. Archived from the original on 26 January 2022 – via Internet Archive.
  5. ^ "Former pupil Suzie Imber wins BBC astronaut series". Berkhamsted School. 3 October 2017. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  6. ^ a b "NASA - Fire and Ice: A Profile of Space Scientist Suzie Imber". nasa.gov. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  7. ^ "Applications - University of Leicester". University of Leicester. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  8. ^ a b "An Evening with Dr Suzie Imber | The Wildlife Trusts". wildlifetrusts.org. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  9. ^ "Astronauts: Do You Have What It Takes? - Suzie, 33 - BBC Two". BBC. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  10. ^ University of Leicester (1 October 2017), Dr Suzie Imber - Astronauts: Do you have what it takes?, retrieved 9 April 2018
  11. ^ ap507 (15 August 2017). "Space scientist makes giant leap towards becoming an astronaut". University of Leicester. Archived from the original on 10 April 2018. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  12. ^ ew205 (26 September 2017). "Leicester scientist reaches the final of BBC Astronauts competition". University of Leicester. Archived from the original on 10 April 2018. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  13. ^ er134. "Leicester space scientist proves she has what it takes to become an astronaut — University of Leicester". le.ac.uk. Retrieved 9 April 2018.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  14. ^ Profile, Specialist Speakers. "Suzie Imber Speaker Profile". Specialist Speakers Speaker Bureau. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  15. ^ "Space scientist wins BBC astronaut show". BBC News. 1 October 2017. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  16. ^ "Suzie Imber – AndesExpedition.co.uk". andesexpedition.co.uk. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  17. ^ "'Astronauts: Do You Have What It Takes?' winner visits the North East with IOP – The Institute of Physics blog". The Institute of Physics blog. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  18. ^ "Astronauts: Have you got what it takes? | Physics and Astronomy | University of Southampton". phys.soton.ac.uk. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  19. ^ "2019 | Dr Suzanne Imber - Claudia Parsons memorial lecture | Chemistry | Loughborough University". lboro.ac.uk. Retrieved 20 June 2019.
  20. ^ "Pro-Chancellor (Students)". University of Leicester Students' Union. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
  21. ^ "Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award and Lecture | Royal Society". royalsociety.org. Retrieved 12 September 2021.
  22. ^ Conversation with Imber – Love and Science podcast for BCfm, 2 October 2017
  23. ^ "Mountaineering". suzieimber.co.uk. Retrieved 16 February 2022.