Konstantinos (Dennis) Papadopoulos holds a permanent joint appointment as Professor in the Departments of Physics and Astronomy. He is founding member and co-director of the East West Space Science Center (EWSSC) and head of the Space Plasma Physics Group. During the period 1969-1979 served as senior scientist and division consultant at the Plasma Physics Division of the Naval Research Laboratory. He specializes in Plasma Physics and Space Plasma Physics.

He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society since 1974 and a corresponding member of the International Academy of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He has received numerous scientific and publication awards, holds eight patents, serves in many national and international boards, and consults extensively with industry, government and non-profit organizations on science, technology and national security issues. In 2009 he was honored with a Festschrift; one-week international symposium in his native Greece, attended by over 100 leading scientists.

Many of his major research accomplishments are related to directing interdisciplinary, critical mass efforts that included state of the art computing to address space physics issues. During 1969 to 1979, while at NRL, he originated the concept of multi-fluid codes with self-consistent anomalous transport. These codes provided the capability to simulate the ionospheric effects of high-altitude nuclear weapon explosions. Between 1980-1986 as P.I. of NASA's STTP program, he directed the University of Maryland effort that using "hybrid codes" resolved the key physics issues of the earth's collisionless shock and of high Mach number shocks in general. During the period 1990-2003, he was the P.I. for theory and modeling in the ISTP mission, a mission that involved more than 12 satellites. He was instrumental in conceiving and promoting the $300M HAARP ionospheric heating facility located in Alaska. The facility was completed in 2003 and received DARPA award as the most innovative project of the year. During the period 2007-2013 he was P.I. of the Multi-University Research Initiative (MURI) on the "Fundamental Physics Issues on Radiation Belt Dynamics and Remediation", a $ 7.5 M program that involves theory and modeling, laboratory and space experiments. He is currently co-PI of the AFOSR – MURI “Mobile HF Sources for Ionospheric Modifications” - $ 7.5 (2013-2019).

Papadopoulous has published over 280 papers in refereed scientific journals, edited two books, owns 8 US patents and presented over 160 invited lectures in National and International meetings. His work was cited over 13000 times and according to Google his h-index is 57. He has supervised 20 PhD students and over 40 post-doctoral fellows.

Research Area:

• Plasma Theory

Research Interests:

• The physics of high Mach number collisionless shocks
• Active experiments that use space as a non-linear plasma laboratory
• Beam-plasma instabilities including non-linear stabilization, collapse and radiation
• Anomalous transport in the laboratory and space
• Global theoretical/numerical modeling in support of space missions
• Laser-plasma interactions and applications to switching and THz radiation

He has

• Predicted the existence of spontaneous magnetic fields in laser produced plasmas.
• Introduced strong turbulence theory in beam plasma interactions, which resolved the long puzzle of type III solar radio burst propagation and emission.
• Invented in 1974 the concept of generation of ELF/VLF waves by using the nonlinear interaction of HF heaters with the ionosphere [owns patent of the effect].
• Developed models of anomalous transport and anomalous resistivity in the ionosphere.
• Introduced major computer simulations in the space community which led to the resolution of the physics of collisionless high Mach number shocks.
• Developed modern theories of Alfven's critical ionization velocity phenomena.
• Developed new switching concepts using magnetized semi-conductor plasmas.
• Developed the concept of HF driven current drive in the ionosphere.
• Developed novel antenna for injection of ELF/VLF waves in space improving the state of the art by over 30dB.

• Physics 270: Electrodynamics, Light, Relativity & Modern Physics

Edward Ott earned his bachelor's degree from Cooper Union in the field of electrical engineering. He received his master's and doctoral degrees in electrophysics from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. After a postdoctoral year at Cambridge University, he became a professor of electrical engineering at Cornell University. He joined the University of Maryland in 1979 and is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Department of Physics.

Professor Ott's current research is on the basic theory and applications of nonlinear dynamics. Some of his current research projects are in wave chaos, dynamics on large interconnected networks, chaotic dynamics of fluids, and weather prediction.

Professor Ott is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). He is the recipient of the APS Julius Edgar Lilienfield Prize for 2014.

Research Area:

• Nonlinear Dynamics & Chaos
• Plasma Theory

Research Projects:

• Dynamics of large networks of coupled systems
• Wave chaos
• State estimation of large spatiotemporally chaotic systems
• Application of machine learning to nonlinear dynamics

Centers & Institutes: Institute for Research in Electronics & Applied Physics

• Physics 715: Chaotic Dynamics

• Distinguished University Professor Ed Ott Retires
• Ott Elected to National Academy
• Researchers Create On-Demand Cold Spots to Generate Electromagnetic Cone of Silence
• Neuromorphics for Network Discovery
• Ott Elected Foreign Member of the Academia Europaea
• Ed Ott Honored with Richardson Medal and Moser Lecture
• Ed Ott in the News
• Ed Ott Awarded Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize

Rabindra Mohapatra’s research interests include theory and phenomenology of neutrino masses, understanding the origin of parity in physics from beyond the standard model, strong CP problem, grand unification of forces and matter, nature and origin of dark matter, understanding flavor patterns of quarks and leptons using higher symmetries as well as origin of matter (“Baryogenesis”). He was one of the proponents of the seesaw mechanism for neutrino masses and also a proponent of the left-right symmetric theories of weak interactions. He proposed the experimental search for neutron-anti-neutron oscillation and proposed the idea of the massless particle majoron. He has authored two books: one on supersymmetry and another on neutrino masses. He has also worked on areas that question the fundamental assumptions of quantum field theory such as possible violations of Pauli exclusion principle, breakdown of electric charge conservation and Lorentz invariance. He also works on astrophysical constraints on particle physics e.g. from supernova explosion, neutron stars etc. He is a UMD Distinguished Scholar-Teacher and Distinguished University Professor.

Research Area:

• Elementary Particles

Centers & Institutes: Maryland Center for Fundamental Physics; Joint Space-Science Institute

• Physics 141: Principles of Physics I
• Physics 142: Prinicples of Physics II
• Physics 260: Vibrations, Waves, Heat, Electricity & Magnetism
• Physics 374: Intermediate Theoretical Methods

• Elevating the Humble Neutrino
• Mohapatra Authors Book on Neutrino's Importance
• Mohapatra's Pioneering "Seesaw" Work Noted
• Mohapatra, Ji Named Distinguished University Professors
• Rabindra Mohapatra Explores Left-right Symmetric Models