Natchimuthuk Gopalswamy

Gopalswamy completed a BSc and MSc in physics at the University of Madras in 1975 and 1977, respectively. These were followed by a PhD at the Indian Institute of Science in 1982. He took up research positions at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru, working on radio observations of the Sun at the Kodaikanal Solar Observatory.^[1] In 1985 he moved to the University of Maryland, working on solar radio bursts,^[2] before moving to NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in 1997, with a joint research professor position at Catholic University of America. He focused on coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and the relation to solar radio bursts.^[3][4][5]

Gopalswamy's primary research interest is solar eruptive phenomenon and their relation to radio bursts and energetic particles.^[6] His early work included observations of CMEs.^[7][8][9] More recently, he worked with the Large-angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) aboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft.^[10] He currently maintains the widely used catalogue of LASCO-observed CMEs,^[11][12][13] which has allowed the link between the approximately 11-year solar cycle and CMEs to be better understood.^[14][15] During the 2017 solar eclipse, he led a team making spectroscopic measurements of the solar corona.^[16] He is the PI of The Balloon-Borne Investigation of Temperature and Speed of Electrons in the Corona (BITSE),^[17] and the Co-I of Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) WAVES, and Sun Earth Connection Coronal and Heliospheric Investigation (SECCHI) white-light coronagraph COR1 instruments.^{[citation needed]}

Gopalswamy is the Executive director of the International Space Weather Initiative (ISWI) since 2013.^{[citation needed]} He initiated the SCOSTEP Visiting Scholar (SVS) program in 2015 while president of the Scientific Committee on Solar-Terrestrial Physics (SCOSTEP) in 2015.^{[citation needed]}