Katy Goodrich, an assistant professor in the West Virginia University Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, was honored with a Big 12 Conference Faculty of the Year Award for her groundbreaking work in plasma and space physics.
This prestigious award recognizes faculty from all 16 of the Big 12 institutions who have demonstrated incredible work, diversity of research breakthroughs and educational opportunities for their university.
Through her project on studying Earth’s auroral acceleration region, Goodrich, who teaches space physics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, aims to make space science more accessible to institutions with limited resources. To inspire and share the world of science, she involved WVU students and local high schoolers in her research.
“This region is an extremely interesting place in the Earth’s magnetosphere where energy in magnetic and electric fields are converted to particle energy,” Goodrich said. “We would be using this opportunity to develop electric field instruments for CubeSats, which hasn’t been done successfully for the magnetosphere before.”
Goodrich joined WVU in 2020 and is currently working alongside NASA-funded missions Magnetospheric Multi-scale and Parker Solar Probe to expand her future research.
“Academic success is at the core of the mission of the Big 12, and that success is only possible with the help of excellent educators dedicated to advancing education and innovation at our institutions,” said Big 12 Chief Impact Officer Jenn Hunter. “This year’s first-ever recipients highlight the diversity of educational opportunities across the conference.”
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