Robyn M. Millan is an American experimental physicist,
best known for her work on radiation belts that surround the Earth.
Education
Millan received a B.A. in Astronomy and Physics (1995), a M.A. in Physics (1999), and a Ph.D. in Physics (2002), all from the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
.
Career and impact
Millan is a professor of physics and astronomy at
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...
.
Her research includes the use of high-altitude scientific balloon experiments to study Earth's radiation belts, specifically, the loss of relativistic electrons from the outer radiation belts into Earth's atmosphere. Millan is principal investigator for th
BARREL(Balloon Array for RBSP Relativistic Electron Losses) project, in which a total of 47 balloon launches floated in the circular wind patterns above the South Pole in 2013 and 2014 and above Sweden in 2015 and 2016.
Each balloon measured X-rays produced by the rain of relativistic electrons falling to Earth from the
Van Allen radiation belts.
The first test of BARREL—funded by NASA and also supported by NSF's Office of Polar Programs that supports logistics of all research in Antarctica—began in December 2008.
Her prior positions include research appointments at Dartmouth and at the University of California, Berkeley. Millan served on the NRC Committee on the role and scope of mission-enabling activities in NASA's space and earth science missions and on the panel on solar wind-magnetosphere interactions for the committee for a decadal strategy for solar and space physics (heliophysics).
Millan has inspired several young researchers as a positive influence on women in the area of space physics. A former student and project manager for the
SpaceX
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal of ...
launch, Julianna Scheiman, made efforts to re-land the first stage booster and has worked for the SES-9 launch. Scheiman worked with Milan on the very early BARREL prototype payloads and conducted her senior thesis on the BARREL piggyback test flight.
Awards and honours
In 2017, Millan received the NASA
Exceptional Public Achievement Medal. In 2011, Millan received the Dartmouth Dean of the Faculty award for outstanding mentoring and advising and for overall career distinction. In 1995, Millan received the Department of Astronomy's Dorthea Klumpke Roberts award.
Selected works
*
*
*
*
*
References
External links
Robyn Millans faculty profile at Dartmouth College
Robyn Millanon
Scopus
Scopus is Elsevier's abstract and citation database launched in 2004. Scopus covers nearly 36,377 titles (22,794 active titles and 13,583 inactive titles) from approximately 11,678 publishers, of which 34,346 are peer-reviewed journals in top-l ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Millan, Robyn
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
Experimental physicists
American Antarctic scientists
Women Antarctic scientists
American women physicists
21st-century American women scientists