Andrew Gerrard

Andrew Gerrard is currently a Professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) located in Newark, NJ and is the Director of the NJIT Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research (CSTR). Gerrard’s research interests involve the investigation of the transfer of energy into, and subsequent synoptic effects within, the Earth’s upper atmosphere. Though it is well understood that the upper atmosphere receives substantial amounts of energy from the sun and magnetosphere (i.e., energy from above the upper atmosphere), the physical mechanisms associated with this energy input are unclear. Furthermore, the nature and amount of energy injected into the upper atmosphere from lower altitudes (i.e., energy from the lower and middle atmosphere) is still uncertain and potentially significant. As such, Gerrard has been very active in bringing together both modeling and experimental techniques to address the physics of such energy injection. In fact, Gerrard leads the CSTR group at NJIT, one of a few research centers in the world capable of covering experimental investigations ranging from the sun’s surface all the way to Earth’s surface.

Biographical information from NJIT.