Dr. William Matthaeus is a Science Co-Investigator for the IMAP Mission.
By Beth Miller | Video Credit: Sam Kmiec and Ally Quinn
William Matthaeus, the Martin A. Pomerantz Chair of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Delaware, has won UD’s highest faculty honor — the Francis Alison Award — in recognition of his pioneering research in space physics and his strong history as a mentor.
Space Physicist Wins Francis Alison Award, Highest Faculty Honor
We interrupt your daily programming for an exclusive statement from the Sun, streaming from 93 million miles away.
“Yo, Blue Hens. It’s me, your 4.5-billion-year-old neighbor, the one at the center of your solar system. Not that I’m boasting. I don’t need to boast. I’m a legit superstar.
“Am I out today, warming up your walk on The Green? Or am I behind the clouds, making you feel a bit gloomy? That’s your hot take on me, isn’t it? You might glance up occasionally and make a fuss over me with those quirky eclipse glasses. But we aren’t close. You know that. I know that.
“Your Bill Matthaeus, though, he’s a different sort. He sees me. He’s been thinking about me for decades! And even though I’m just a hot mess of burning Plasma consists of a gas heated to sufficiently high temperatures that the atoms ionize. The properties of the gas are controlled by electromagnetic forces among constituent ions and electrons, which results in different behavior than gas made primarily of neutral atoms like the Earth’s atmosphere. Plasma is often considered the fourth state of matter (besides solid, liquid, and gas). Most of the matter in the Universe is in the plasma state. to a lot of people, he can make me seem cool to anybody who’s interested.
“He’s been interested in the powerful wind I’m famous for creating — wind that routinely exceeds 1 million mph — and he likes to talk about my turbulent life. I don’t apologize for that drama. It’s who I am, people! And he’s not put off by it. He thinks it’s important.
“He writes about me with zeal and many strange symbols — hieroglyphics, maybe. He tries to describe the indescribable things I do, the powers I share with every blessed one of you, my radiance, magnetism and the tsunami-like influence I have on so many things. You love those auroras I make, don’t you — the northern lights, the southern lights? Sometimes I just can’t contain all this power. Bill can explain it to you.
“Bill Matthaeus — he knows some things.”
It’s true. Matthaeus, the Martin A. Pomerantz Chair of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Delaware, has won top prizes for his research of the Sun, the A stream of charged particles, mostly protons and electrons, that escapes into the Sun's outer atmosphere at high speeds and streams out into the solar system in all directions., plasma physics and many related areas of space physics. Just as impressive is the joy and collegial warmth he brings to this complex work, drawing students, young faculty, colleagues, and collaborators into a global network of like-minded scientists.
Now the University has recognized Matthaeus with its highest faculty honor, the 2024 Francis Alison Award. The Alison Award, named for UD’s founder, recognizes faculty who demonstrate the best blend of “scholar-schoolmaster” traits. He is the 46th winner since the award’s inception in 1979.
To hear from Matthaeus directly about all this, attend his Alison Lecture — "Riding the Turbulent Solar Wind: A Journey through Space Physics" — at 4 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2025, at Gore Recital Hall.
What Matthaeus Does
The research of pioneering physicist Eugene Parker (left) and UD’s Bill Matthaeus focused on physics in the Sun’s A gaseous envelope surrounding a planet, or the visible layers of a star. — also known as the The bubble-like region surrounding the solar system inflated by the solar wind, shielding the solar system from interstellar radiation.. It was Parker who first developed a mathematical An idea in science which is supported by numerous pieces of evidence, and which has thus far withstood the rigors of testing by other scientists. It is different from a hypothesis, which is an idea based on observations, but which has not yet been tested, or does not have further evidence supporting it. Theory in the scientific sense is very different from the colloquial definition, where a theory is essentially a guess. Examples include the Big Bang theory, the theory of gravitation, and the theory of evolution. predicting the existence of the A stream of charged particles, mostly protons and electrons, that escapes into the Sun's outer atmosphere at high speeds and streams out into the solar system in all directions., powerful streams of charged Plasma consists of a gas heated to sufficiently high temperatures that the atoms ionize. The properties of the gas are controlled by electromagnetic forces among constituent ions and electrons, which results in different behavior than gas made primarily of neutral atoms like the Earth’s atmosphere. Plasma is often considered the fourth state of matter (besides solid, liquid, and gas). Most of the matter in the Universe is in the plasma state. that emanate from the Sun in all directions at speeds of about 1 million miles an hour. The technology to test Parker’s An idea in science which is supported by numerous pieces of evidence, and which has thus far withstood the rigors of testing by other scientists. It is different from a hypothesis, which is an idea based on observations, but which has not yet been tested, or does not have further evidence supporting it. Theory in the scientific sense is very different from the colloquial definition, where a theory is essentially a guess. Examples include the Big Bang theory, the theory of gravitation, and the theory of evolution. did not exist until NASA’s Parker Solar Probe launched in 2018. Matthaeus was among the investigators who helped to shape plans for the PSP, which sent the spacecraft closer to the Sun than any spacecraft had ever gone. Parker died in 2022, about 3 ½ years after the launch. This photo was taken in June 2009 at the Solar Wind 12 meeting in Saint-Malo, France.
Image Credit: Evan Krape and Courtesy of William Matthaeus
Matthaeus is a theoretical physicist. He thinks about, calculates, and proposes reasons for phenomena and predicts what is likely to happen in various conditions. Lab coats and safety goggles are not the fashion of his realm, but high-level mathematics and computational methods are essential to his study of space physics, especially in the A gaseous envelope surrounding a planet, or the visible layers of a star. of the Sun, a field known as The study of the Sun and its connection to the solar system, including the physical processes that occur in the space environment..
Specifically, he studies space plasmas and the effects of turbulence, turbulent cascades, and the complications that occur in electromagnetic fields.
Understanding these conditions, which are common in the Sun’s plasma-packed atmosphere, is essential for predicting The conditions and activity observed in interplanetary space caused by the Sun’s activity, such as solar flares, solar storms, and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Severe space weather conditions directed towards Earth can impact infrastructure and technology on Earth, as well as satellites, spacecraft, and astronauts in its trajectory., for example. The geomagnetic storms created by coronal A measure of an object's resistance to change in its motion (inertial mass); a measure of the strength of gravitational force an object can produce (gravitational mass). ejections — explosive bursts of plasma and its energized particles from the outer edge of the Sun — can endanger astronauts and disrupt power grids, telecommunications and satellite systems.
To understand and predict such conditions, scientists must understand plasma, wave dynamics, and how magnetic fields change things in predictable and unpredictable ways.
Matthaeus is an expert in this field and a pioneer in the study of plasma turbulence. He is counted among the Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, the American Physical Society and the Institute of Physics, and a winner of the prestigious James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics, the highest award given in that field.
He is respected far beyond the boundaries of these United States, with a range of workshops and meetings that extend to Italy, Thailand, Germany, Norway, and Argentina, to name just a few places on Planet Earth. Of course, his research extends into the Sun’s atmosphere, where multiple NASA missions continue to collect data to accomplish scientific objectives Matthaeus helped to develop.
Justin C. Kasper, principal investigator for the coronal and solar wind plasma instruments on the Parker Solar Probe mission, called Matthaeus a “force of nature when it comes to rapidly identifying new and exciting lines of thought or directions of research.”
And David McComas, vice president for the Princeton University Plasma Physics Laboratory, said Matthaeus is a “household name” in plasma physics.
“Bill has made seminal discoveries and contributions in so many areas that it is hard to summarize his contributions in a brief letter,” McComas wrote. “Many of these contributions have been paradigm-changing in the field of plasma physics, creating new subfields studied by scientists worldwide … Quite simply, Bill’s breadth and depth of contributions are unparalleled.”
Matthaeus’ ideas about turbulence and its significance for the solar wind weren’t always embraced.
“In the days before the papers I wrote, the prevalent opinion was that there were fluctuations, but they weren’t really doing anything. They weren’t dynamically active. They were just fossils from the Sun,” Matthaeus said. “Now turbulence is widely regarded as the reason we have the solar wind and the cascade transfers that energy from a large-scale structure to the kinetic scale, where the plasma gets heated.”
Fostering a Thriving Research Environment
The ripple effects of Matthaeus’ research prowess have been nothing short of transformative for his students, who say they have been energized not only by his expertise but by his collegial warmth and interest in their ideas.
“A wonderful feature of working with Bill is that discussions are always two-way,” wrote Sean Oughton, who was a doctoral student of Matthaeus’ and now is professor of applied mathematics at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. “Bill is totally open to ideas from everyone. As graduate students, our own ideas were taken seriously and explored, even when they were naïve or inchoate.”
Rohit Chhiber, who also was mentored by Matthaeus in his doctoral studies and now works at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, agreed.
“Instead of rigidly hierarchical relationships with students, working with him is characterized by the values of flexibility, approachability, spontaneity and fun,” he wrote, “fostering a culture in which scientific research thrives.”
Matthaeus is skilled at bringing it down to Earth for non-experts, too, giving them a taste of the wonder and curiosity that has driven his studies for more than five decades. He recruits students — from novices to those with demonstrated skills — for grant-supported projects of Delaware Space Grant, which he has buttressed since becoming director in 2016, and the competitive opportunities provided through NASA’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).
By his example and mentoring nature, Matthaeus passes the torch to future generations of scientists.
“I would certainly not claim to have Bill’s charisma,” Oughton wrote. “However, in supervising graduate students myself, I have very much based my approach along the same lines he employed with me and other students.”
University of Delaware physicist Bill Matthaeus has spent a lot of A measure of the flow of events. teaching and conducting workshops around the world. He has made regular trips to Arcetri in Florence, Italy, where scientist Galileo Galilei lived until his death in 1642. This shot was taken with sunlight streaming through a window in Galileo’s bedroom.
Image Credit: Evan Krape and Courtesy of William Matthaeus
Except for a couple of years during the COVID-19 pandemic, Matthaeus has made an annual pilgrimage to Arcetri, Italy, the hometown of astronomer Galileo Galilei, to teach at the Arcetri Workshop on Plasma Astrophysics, which he helped to found in 2006.
Kasper said this workshop has become a classical space science meeting for both Europe and the U.S.
“I have sent all of my plasma graduate students and postdoctoral researchers to attend these programs at one or more points in their career, and have been delighted by the impact Bill had on their understanding of challenges in turbulence in plasmas and in major topics,” he said.
In all, Matthaeus has supervised 24 postdoctoral fellows, 17 doctoral students, nine foreign exchange students at the doctoral level and three undergraduate research students.
Since the completion of his doctoral thesis in 1979, Matthaeus has published more than 560 papers, which have been cited about 46,000 times by other researchers, according to Google Scholar.
He has been a primary investigator on multiple grants from NASA, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy, with more than $40 million in previous, current and pending support.
Among the major missions he has been part of are: the Parker Solar Probe, Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission, Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH), HelioSwarm and Solar Orbiter (a joint mission with the European Space Agency).
Learn more on the University of Delaware website.