Episode 5 - Heliophysics Big Year with Dr. Thomas (Tom) Berger, University of Colorado Boulder

Tom has recently became one of the first Principal Investigators in NASA’s new Space Weather Centers of Excellence program, working with NASA, NOAA, and university partners to develop the next generation of orbital space weather forecasting models. He came to space weather research via a lifelong love of astronomy and solar physics, graduating from UC Berkeley with a degree in Engineering Physics followed by a Ph.D. in Applied Physics/Astrophysics from Stanford University. Tom also founded the Space Weather Deep Learning Laboratory, the first university facility to focus on AI/ML applications to space weather prediction.He’s been a faculty member of FDL since 2021, working with teams of FDL researchers to develop advanced models for prediction of the Low Earth Orbit environment, a critical region of space that is particularly vulnerable to extreme geomagnetic storms triggered by solar eruptions.