Dr. Donald V. Reames
Position: Astrophysicist Emeritus
Office: GSFC ,
Building 34, Room W392, Mail Code 661
Phone: (301) 286-6454
Fax: (301) 286-1215
E-mail: donald.v.reames@nasa.gov,
dvreames@umd.edu
Home page: https://epact2.gsfc.nasa.gov/don
Born and raised in south Florida, Don Reames attended the University
of California at Berkeley for both his undergraduate and graduate
work. Receiving a Ph.D. in nuclear physics of heavy-ion reactions
in 1964, he came to Goddard to work with a group studying element
abundances of the heavy ions from solar events and in the galactic
cosmic rays, using sounding rockets flown from Ft. Churchill, the
Gemini XI spacecraft and high-altitude balloons. Subsequently,
he analyzed data from energetic-particle detectors on the
ISEE-3/ICE spacecraft and from similar instruments on
IMP-8 and
Helios
1 and 2 to study particle acceleration at the Sun and throughout
the heliosphere. He used particle abundances to study wave-particle
interactions that produce the 3He-rich, Fe-rich ions from impulsive
solar flares, and studied the element abundances of the solar
corona using particles accelerated by shock waves from large coronal
mass ejections (CMEs) and in corotating interaction regions of
the solar wind. He has done extensive correlations of particle
measurements with radio, optical, X-ray and gamma-ray observations
in solar flares in an effort to relate the photons to the energetic
particles that produce them. CMEs and the particles they accelerate
also have significant terrestrial effects.
Don Reames participated in the design, construction
and testing of the Energetic Particles, Acceleration, Composition
and Transport
(EPACT)
experiment on the
WIND
spacecraft launched
November 1, 1994. EPACT is 100 times more sensitive than previous
instruments and continues to greatly extended the element and isotope resolution
and the energy coverage of particle observations.
Don is also a Co-investigator on the
IMPACT experiment on the
STEREO mission
launched in 2006.
Over the years Don's primary interest has been to understand the
physics of particle acceleration in astrophysical plasmas. However,
the pursuit of that goal has involved diverse activities from
direct participation in work on acceleration or transport theory,
to transferring liquid helium in Ft. Churchill, to calibrating
detectors in a gold beam at Oak Ridge, to writing and debugging
C programs for real-time data acquisition or graphic display.
In 2003 Don retired from the Civil Service to continue in an Emeritus
position at Goddard. In 2007 he joined the
University of Maryland, College Park
where he is now a Senior Research Scientist.
Don received the 2001 John C. Lindsay Memorial Award for Space Sciences
from Goddard and the
2012 George Ellery Hale Prize from the Solar Physics
Division of the American Astronomical Society
(video).
Selected Recent (1997-2013) Publications:
Standard Curriculum vitae and complete reference list
This file was last modified on Saturday, 16-Mar-2019 16:28:42 EDT