ERC Starting Grant Awarded: D-SURGE Project

I have been awarded a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant for my project D-SURGE (Data-driven Simulations for Understanding Reconnection and GEomagnetism).

Space weather, caused by energy transfer from the solar wind into Earth’s magnetosphere, can accelerate particles to extreme energies—posing risks to satellites, communications, and space exploration. However, key questions remain:

  • What triggers geomagnetic storms?
  • How is energy stored and explosively released?

D-SURGE aims to develop a new generation of data-driven plasma models, bridging the gap between local particle dynamics and global magnetospheric behavior. The goal is to investigate the multiscale nature of space plasmas and compare simulations with observations.

This project is enabled by recent advances in scientific machine learning and high-performance computing, as well as the support of the ERC, my collaborators in AI and space missions, and my host institution. I am grateful for the opportunity to advance plasma physics.

🚀 Looking forward to the journey ahead!