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portrait flag Kim Nielsen,
Utah State University


E-Mail: knielsen [at] cc.usu.edu
Homepage

Brief Biographical Information:

Kim Nielsen was born in Denmark. He studied with Hans Stenbaek-Nielsen at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks before accepting a post-doc position with Dr. Michael J. Taylor in research of the upper atmosphere. He enjoys living in the mountains of Utah, where he breeds huskeys and trains for dog sled races in winter time.

Research:

His primary research activities have focussed on the use of state-of-the-art CCD imaging instrumentation and digital analysis techniques for remote sensing studies of a range of upper atmospheric phenomena including mesospheric and thermospheric airglow emissions, acoustic-gravity waves, noctilucent clouds, equatorial and mid-latitude F region dynamics and faint, high-latitude aurora.

Research on Leonid MAC:

Kim Nielsen helped operate the InGaAs cameras for near-IR imaging of airglow during the Leonid meteor storms.

Results included the first near-IR spectra of meteors and the discovery that tiny bits of meteoric matter are ejected at high speed from the spinning meteoroids. More information here.

Research on Hyperseed MAC:

For the Hyperseed campaign, Nielsen wil deploy the same cameras for studies of the near-IR emissions of the forebody radiation and wake.