Joseph Westlake

Dissertation Title: Titan’s upper atmospheric structure and ionospheric composition

Dissertation Advisor: Hunter Waite

Graduation Date: Summer 2011

Post-Doctoral Fellowship: John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

Current Position: John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory – Chief Scientist

Current Position and Research Areas: He is a space physicist whose research focuses on understanding the planetary magnetospheres in our Solar System as well as understanding the structure and processes that produce the heliosphere, our local space environment. At APL, he has been responsible for the development of the low-energy plasma laboratory that is used to conduct plasma instrument calibrations and for various instrument development activities at APL spanning plasma, particle, and ENA sensors. He is the Principal Investigator for the Plasma Instrument for Magnetic Sounding (PIMS) an instrument to be flown on the Europa Clipper spacecraft and will be responsible for determining the plasma influence to the induced magnetic field to determine the ice shell thickness, ocean depth, and ocean salinity. He is the Project Scientist for the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission that will discover the processes responsible for the structure and dynamics of the heliosphere. He is a member of NASAs Planetary Advisory Committee (PAC). He has made significant contributions to several missions including the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS), ESA’s JUICE mission to Ganymede, and Cassini.