Research Interests

I am a visiting researcher with the BU Center for Space Physics and a Senior Scientist at the Planetary Science Institute as of late 2023. My research interests are planetary magnetic fields, ionospheres, and aurora.

I am a Participating Scientist with NASA’s Juno Mission, which has been in a polar orbit around Jupiter since 2016. I also use data from the Galileo mission to Jupiter (1996-2003) and the Hubble Space Telescope to study Jupiter’s magnetosphere and aurora. I am interested in how mass and energy are transported through the magnetosphere and how tail reconnection contributes to plasma transport at Jupiter, understanding the relative roles of internal factors vs. the solar wind in driving magnetospheric dynamics, and mapping features in Jupiter’s aurora to their source regions and processes in the magnetosphere.

I am also a member of the science team for NASA’s MAVEN mission, which has been in orbit around Mars since September 2014. I use data from MAVEN and other spacecraft to study the structure and dynamics of the Martian ionosphere, and I am especially interested in understanding how the unique crustal magnetic field environment at Mars affects its ionosphere.

I have been at Boston University since 2014. From 2016 to 2018 I was an NSF postdoctoral fellow at Boston University studying the effects of the solar wind on Jupiter’s magnetosphere and aurora. In 2016 and 2017 I co-led an international team at the International Space Science Institute in Bern, Switzerland to study the solar wind influence on the magnetospheres of Jupiter and Saturn. Before coming to Boston University, I was a postdoc at the University of Leicester (UK) where I worked with Professor Emma Bunce.

Click here for SWMF-OH model predictions of the solar wind upstream of Mars and Jupiter (2014-2022) and at Juno during its cruise to Jupiter (2014-2016).

Click here for my CV (updated June 2024).

Education

  • Ph.D., Geophysics and Space Physics, 2012, University of California, Los Angeles – Los Angeles, CA
    Thesis: The Structure and Dynamics of Jupiter’s Magnetosphere
    Advisor: Professor Margaret G. Kivelson
  • M.S., Geophysics and Space Physics, 2009, University of California, Los Angeles – Los Angeles, CA
  • B.S. Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, 2006 and B.S. Physics, 2006, Massachusetts Institute of Technology – Cambridge, MA

Awards and Honors

  • Editor’s Citation for Excellence in Refereeing, Geophysical Research Letters, 2019
  • Editor’s Citation for Excellence in Refereeing, Geophysical Research Letters, 2018
  • NASA Group Achievement Award, as part of the MAVEN science team, 2018
  • Editor’s Citation for Excellence in Refereeing, Geophysical Research Letters, 2017
  • NASA Early Career Fellowship, 2017
  • NASA Group Achievement Award, as part of the MAVEN science team, 2016
  • Robert H. Goddard (RHG) Exceptional Achievement for Science award, as part of the MAVEN Science Team, 2016
  • Prix Baron Nicolet, awarded to a distinguished researcher under the age of 40 in the field of
    aeronomy, from the Royal Academy of Sciences, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium, 2012
  • Outstanding Student Paper, Fall 2010 meeting of the American Geophysical Union, poster titled “Relating Jupiter’s auroral features to magnetospheric sources”
  • Outstanding Student Paper, Fall 2008 meeting of the American Geophysical Union, oral presentation titled “Reconnection and flows in the Jovian magnetotail as inferred from magnetometer observations”

Selected Recent Publications (full list here)

Vogt, M. F., Connerney, J. E. P., DiBraccio, G. A., Wilson, R. J., Thomsen, M. F., Ebert, R. W., et al (2020). Magnetotail reconnection at Jupiter: A survey of Juno magnetic field observations. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, 125, e2019JA027486. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JA027486

Collinson, G.A., J. McFadden, J. Grebowsky, D. Mitchell, R. Lillis, P. Withers, M. F. Vogt, M. Benna, J. Espley, and B. Jakosky (2020), Constantly forming sporadic E-like layers and rifts in the Martian ionosphere and their implications for Earth. Nat Astron (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-019-0984-8

Withers, P., M. Felici, M. Mendillo, L. Moore, C. Narvaez, M. F. Vogt, K. Oudrhiri, D. Kahan & B. M. Jakosky (2020), The MAVEN Radio Occultation Science Experiment (ROSE), Space Sci. Rev., 216, doi:10.1007/s11214-020-00687-6

Artemyev, A.V., Clark, G., Mauk, B., Vogt, M. F., & Zhang, X.‐J. (2020). Juno observations of heavy ion energization during transient dipolarizations in Jupiter magnetotail. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, 125, e2020JA027933. doi:10.1029/2020JA027933

Withers, P., M. Felici, C. Flynn, and M. F. Vogt, Recovery and Validation of Mars Ionospheric Electron Density Profiles from Viking Orbiter Radio Occultation Observations (2020), Planet. Sci. J., 1, doi:10.3847/psj/ab8fb2

Weigt, D.M., Jackman, C.M., Dunn, W.R., Gladstone, G.R., Vogt, M.F., Wibisono, A.D., Branduardi-Raymont, G., Altamirano, D., Allegrini, F., Ebert, R.W., Valek, P.W., Thomsen, M.F., Clark, G. and Kraft, R.P. (2020), Chandra observations of Jupiter’s X-ray auroral emission during Juno apojove 2017. Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, 125, e2019JE006262, doi:10.1029/2019JE006262

Teaching Experience

  • Instructor, Physics 1250 (Engineering Physics I), Fall 2015, Wentworth Institute of Technology
  • Teaching Assistant, ESS 8 (Earthquakes), Winter 2011, UCLA
  • Teaching Assistant, ESS 9 (Solar System and Planets), Fall 2007, UCLA
  • Undergraduate Teaching Assistant, 12.409 (Hands-On Astronomy), Spring 2006, MIT

Undergraduate Students Mentored

  • JP Barringer, SUPPR student at Boston University, summer 2019. JP’s work involved data MAVEN data analysis from the Martian ionosphere.
  • Casey Flynn, Boston University, summer 2015-2018 (with Prof. Paul Withers). Casey’s work included validation of radio occultation data from the Martian ionosphere and analysis of MAVEN data. Her research was published in a peer-reviewed journal.
  • Michaela Moynihan, Boston University, spring-summer 2016 (with Prof. Michael Mendillo). Michaela’s work involved analysis of MAVEN electron density measurements in the Martian ionosphere.
  • Jacob Hermann, REU student at Boston University, summer 2016 (with Prof. Paul Withers). Jacob’s summer work included validation and analysis of radio occultation profiles of electron density in the ionosphere of Venus. Jacob presented his work at the fall 2016 DPS meeting.
  • Szilard Gyalay, REU student at Boston University, summer 2015 (with Prof. Paul Withers). Szilard’s summer work included research on the solar wind’s influence on Jupiter’s aurora. Szilard presented his work at the fall 2015 AGU meeting.

Press Coverage

Accepted Funding Proposals

Below is a list of successful proposals for funding that I have submitted (as PI) to NASA, NSF, and STScI. Files linked below include only the main body of the proposal (e.g. the scientific/technical/merit section for NASA ROSES proposals). I have posted them publicly so that they can provide an example of successful research proposals for others in the scientific community, and also to increase transparency for the general public since the work is funded by federal tax dollars.

Contact

Center for Space Physics
725 Commonwealth Ave.
Boston MA 02215
mvogt@bu.edu
tel: +1 617-353-7410

Links

Publication lists:

Other links: