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Gordon Dean Holman
Gordon Dean Holman is an emeritus research astrophysicist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA's) Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. His research mostly focused on obtaining an understanding of high-energy radiation from astronomical objects. This radiation cannot be observed from Earth's surface, but is observed with instruments on satellites launched to orbits above Earth's atmosphere. It is primarily emitted by high-energy electrons interacting with ions. These electrons also emit radiation at radio frequencies which is observed from Earth's surface. Consequently, these observations from space and radio telescopes provide a view of hot gas and energetic particles in the Universe that could not otherwise be obtained. Holman has specialized in the interpretation of these observed emissions to determine the origin and evolution of this hot gas and energetic particles. He has been described as "not just a theorist, he also looks at the data".
Holman spent most of his career as a solar physicist on the Science Team of the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI), a space observatory designed to observe X-ray emission from solar flares. He has authored or co-authored over one-hundred research papers for scientific journals as well as over one-hundred published abstracts of presentations at scientific meetings. They provide new information about solar flares and active regions as well as clusters of galaxies and disconnection events in comet tails (see Research section below). He has also authored review articles, science magazine articles, book reviews, proposals, technical reports, referee reports, proposal reviews, and Web sites. He is author of the April 2006 Scientific American article "The Mysterious Origins of Solar Flares" and principal author of the Solar Flare Theory Educational Web Pages (last revised in 2007). The magazine Physics Today published his article "Solar Eruptive Events" in April 2012. He is author of the book "The Scientific Method: Why science is a crucial process for human progress, not just another academic subject or belief"
After graduating from Northeast High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 1967, Holman obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in physics with a minor in mathematics at Florida State University in 1971.
In the summer of 1970 Holman was awarded an International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience (IAESTE) traineeship at the Physikalisch-Techniche Bundesanstalt in Braunschweig, Germany, where he interned with a group studying the stimulated emission of trapped electrons from solid surfaces. This led to a research note in the journal Physica Status Solidi.
Holman obtained a Master of Science degree in physics in 1973 and Doctor of Philosophy degree in astrophysics in 1977, both from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His PhD dissertation, obtained under the supervision of Dr. Wayne A. Christiansen, was titled "Models for X-Ray and Radio Emission from Clusters of Galaxies".
Holman started his career as a physics graduate student teaching observational laboratories for freshman astronomy students at the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center in Chapel Hill, NC. He also assisted with lecture courses in astronomy, physics, and Physics and Society.
In 1977 Holman was hired as a lecturer in the Astronomy Program at the University of Maryland, College Park. In August 1977 he was awarded a two-year Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Maryland Center for Fundamental Physics. He was hired as a Research associate in 1979 by Mukul Kundu to work with his solar radio astronomy group. He remained with this group at the University of Maryland for four years. With Kundu he coedited the Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Symposium No, 107, "Unstable Current Systems and Plasma Instabilities in Astrophysics".
In 1983 Holman was awarded a two-year National Academy of Sciences / National Research Council Senior Research Associateship at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. He was hired into a federal civil service position at Goddard in 1985 in what is now the Laboratory for Solar Physics, where he remained until he retired in 2018. In 1988 Holman spent roughly six months at NASA Headquarters in Washington DC assisting with NASA's Space physics proposal review process.
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Gordon Dean Holman
Gordon Dean Holman is an emeritus research astrophysicist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA's) Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. His research mostly focused on obtaining an understanding of high-energy radiation from astronomical objects. This radiation cannot be observed from Earth's surface, but is observed with instruments on satellites launched to orbits above Earth's atmosphere. It is primarily emitted by high-energy electrons interacting with ions. These electrons also emit radiation at radio frequencies which is observed from Earth's surface. Consequently, these observations from space and radio telescopes provide a view of hot gas and energetic particles in the Universe that could not otherwise be obtained. Holman has specialized in the interpretation of these observed emissions to determine the origin and evolution of this hot gas and energetic particles. He has been described as "not just a theorist, he also looks at the data".
Holman spent most of his career as a solar physicist on the Science Team of the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI), a space observatory designed to observe X-ray emission from solar flares. He has authored or co-authored over one-hundred research papers for scientific journals as well as over one-hundred published abstracts of presentations at scientific meetings. They provide new information about solar flares and active regions as well as clusters of galaxies and disconnection events in comet tails (see Research section below). He has also authored review articles, science magazine articles, book reviews, proposals, technical reports, referee reports, proposal reviews, and Web sites. He is author of the April 2006 Scientific American article "The Mysterious Origins of Solar Flares" and principal author of the Solar Flare Theory Educational Web Pages (last revised in 2007). The magazine Physics Today published his article "Solar Eruptive Events" in April 2012. He is author of the book "The Scientific Method: Why science is a crucial process for human progress, not just another academic subject or belief"
After graduating from Northeast High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 1967, Holman obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in physics with a minor in mathematics at Florida State University in 1971.
In the summer of 1970 Holman was awarded an International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience (IAESTE) traineeship at the Physikalisch-Techniche Bundesanstalt in Braunschweig, Germany, where he interned with a group studying the stimulated emission of trapped electrons from solid surfaces. This led to a research note in the journal Physica Status Solidi.
Holman obtained a Master of Science degree in physics in 1973 and Doctor of Philosophy degree in astrophysics in 1977, both from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His PhD dissertation, obtained under the supervision of Dr. Wayne A. Christiansen, was titled "Models for X-Ray and Radio Emission from Clusters of Galaxies".
Holman started his career as a physics graduate student teaching observational laboratories for freshman astronomy students at the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center in Chapel Hill, NC. He also assisted with lecture courses in astronomy, physics, and Physics and Society.
In 1977 Holman was hired as a lecturer in the Astronomy Program at the University of Maryland, College Park. In August 1977 he was awarded a two-year Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Maryland Center for Fundamental Physics. He was hired as a Research associate in 1979 by Mukul Kundu to work with his solar radio astronomy group. He remained with this group at the University of Maryland for four years. With Kundu he coedited the Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Symposium No, 107, "Unstable Current Systems and Plasma Instabilities in Astrophysics".
In 1983 Holman was awarded a two-year National Academy of Sciences / National Research Council Senior Research Associateship at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. He was hired into a federal civil service position at Goddard in 1985 in what is now the Laboratory for Solar Physics, where he remained until he retired in 2018. In 1988 Holman spent roughly six months at NASA Headquarters in Washington DC assisting with NASA's Space physics proposal review process.