Minna Palmroth awarded Copernicus Medal 2023
The Copernicus Medal 2023 has been awarded to Minna Palmroth for her ground-breaking work in leading the development of the world's most accurate space environment simulation Vlasiator, and for her outstanding achievements in promotion of space physics to the general public and for decision makers.
The medal will be presented during the Copernicus Medal Ceremony 2023 on Thursday, 27 April 2023, 19:00, in room G2 of the Austria Center Vienna during the EGU General Assembly 2023. Please find more information on the ceremony.
Minna Palmroth is a professor in computational space physics at the University of Helsinki and Finnish Meteorological Institute. She is the Director of the Finnish Centre of Excellence in Research of Sustainable Space, which is Finland's first own space programme. Palmroth has twice won the prestigious European Research Council grant (Starting 2007; Consolidator 2015) with which she initiated and led the development of Vlasiator, a massively parallel simulation utilizing the top-notch high-performance computing technologies. Vlasiator models the coupled solar wind – magnetosphere – ionosphere system with the ion-kinetic description.
Palmroth's experience includes fundamental space physics, space weather effects to critical societal infrastructure, high-performance computing, and the sustainable use of space. She holds many international and national positions of trust and policy advising positions. She is a member of INFRAG advisory group advising the EuroHPC supercomputer infrastructure. In 2014-2017 she was a member and chair of the European Commission Space Advisory Group. In Finland, she works closely with the government, ministries, and the preparedness authorities regarding space economy, space situational awareness, and space policy.
Palmroth is also highly active in outreach. She has written books to engage the public and to inspire girls to choose natural sciences. She appears in documentaries, books, TV, radio, and newspapers commenting any aspects related to space. In 2021 she became the Chair of Board for the Technology Academy Finland, awarding the 1-million euro Millennium Technology Prize. She is a member of Academia Europaea, Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, Finnish Academy of Technological Sciences, and the Finnish Society of Science and Letters. She has been awarded with the J.V. Snellman prize for her outreach activities, and the Väisälä prize for her scientific achievements. More information at: https://blogs.helsinki.fi/palmroth/about-me/
More information on the Copernicus Medal.
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