Faculty and Curricular Development in Remote Sensing and Space Sciences (RSSS) at the University of Illinois

随着我们更加依赖对空间环境条件敏感的技术系统，如全球定位系统和高速通信网络，空间科学家对我们的社会越来越有价值。通信、导航以及能源生产和分配受到空间天气和近地空间环境气候学的重大影响。预测可能影响这些技术的扰动的能力取决于对相互关联的太阳-地球系统的详细知识和了解，该系统包括太阳物理、日光层物理、磁层物理和大气学等学科。该项目是由空间科学学院发展计划资助的，其目的是确保大学教学人员的太阳和空间物理的健康和活力。通过在组成空间科学的智力学科中设立新的终身教职，太阳和空间物理的研究主题将被整合到基础物理、天文学、电气工程、地球科学、气象学、计算机科学和应用数学课程中，并导致空间物理研究生课程的发展，能够培养该领域的下一代领导者。该项目将支持伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳运动分校电气和计算机工程系一个新的终身教职教师职位，目的是扩大遥感和空间科学小组内研究和教学专门知识的广度和深度。具体地说，新雇员将针对空间科学的几个高度优先领域，包括：高性能科学计算和空间环境的数值建模和模拟；用于探测空间环境的新型光电技术；用于分布式(星座)空间环境传感的新型传感器技术；以及航天飞行硬件设计和开发。在现有关键课程的基础上，新的教员将与该小组的资深教员合作，开发一套完整的、正式的遥感和空间科学课程，这是加州大学目前没有的课程。此外，伊利诺伊大学正在率先开发大规模在线开放课程，通过这些课程，新员工将有一个独特的机会，在全球范围内影响空间科学教育。额外雇用的人员将进一步加强和发展与几个部门和中心的现有伙伴关系，并将鼓励与空间科学界广泛寻求新的伙伴关系。为此，预算中包括了新教员的资金，以便在方案的第二年和第四年举办有针对性的小型讲习班，主题是他们选择的研究主题，以鼓励外部伙伴关系。利用几个已建立和成功的部门和机构范围的计划，该项目将确保在招收学生加入该计划和新教师的过程中，更加注重增加多样性。

Space scientists are becoming ever more valuable to our society as we rely more heavily upon technical systems sensitive to conditions in the space environment, such as global positioning systems and high-speed communications networks. Communications, navigation and energy production and distribution are significantly affected by Space Weather, and the climatology of the near-Earth space environment. The ability to forecast disturbances which may impact these technologies hinges upon detailed knowledge and understanding of the connected Sun-Earth system, comprising the disciplines of solar physics, heliospheric physics, magnetospheric physics and aeronomy. This project is funded under the Faculty Development in Space Sciences program, the aim of which is to ensure the health and vitality of solar and space physics on university teaching faculties. Through the creation of new tenure-track faculty positions within the intellectual disciplines that comprise the space sciences, research topics in solar and space physics will be integrated into basic physics, astronomy, electrical engineering, geoscience, meteorology, computer science, and applied mathematics programs, and lead to the development of space physics graduate programs capable of training the next generation of leaders in this field. This project will support a new tenure-track faculty position in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Campaign (UI), with the purpose of expanding the breadth and depth of the research and teaching expertise within the Remote Sensing and Space Sciences group. Specifically, the new hire will target several high priority areas in space science, including: high-performance scientific computing and numerical modeling and simulation of the space environment; novel electro-optics technology for probing the space environment; novel sensor technology for distributed (constellation) sensing of the space environment; and space flight hardware design and development. Building on existing key courses, the new faculty member will work with senior faculty members in the group to develop a full, formal curriculum in remote sensing and space sciences, which does not currently exist at UI. Further, UI is pioneering the development of Massive Open Online Courses, through which the new hire will have a unique opportunity to impact space science education on a global scale. The additional hire will further strengthen and grow existing partnerships with several departments and centers and will also be encouraged to pursue new partnerships broadly with the space sciences community. To this end, funds are included in the budget for the new faculty member to host small targeted workshops in the 2nd and 4th years of the program on a research topic of their choice to encourage outside partnerships. Utilizing several established and successful departmental and institution wide programs the project will work to ensure a strong focus on increasing diversity in the recruiting both of students into the program and of the new faculty member.