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Contact
Web: http://grian.phy.tcd.ie/~phiggins/
Email: pohuigin@gmail.com
Tel: +353 (0)1 896 2157
Fax: +353 (0)1 671 1759
Bio
I have recently completed a BA in Astrophysics and Physics at UC Berkeley and I am currently pursuing a postgraduate degree in Physics at Trinity College Dublin. My intrests include travelling to far away places, especially Greece. I collect the albums of obscure indy bands, draw and paint, design web sites, program (especially in IDL), and most recently, research the heliosphere. It is amazing to be able to practice your hobby for a living.
Research
Recently, I worked with George Parks's plasma physics research group at Berkeley's Space Science Labortory, studying the magnetospheric pseudo-pulsations exhibited in the Earth's Aurora Australis. I am conducted a statistical study of the phenomena surrounding these pulsations, using data from POLAR's UVI (Ultra Violet Imager) instrument. At TCD I am involved in developing software for SolarMonitor. I have written a user friendly IDL object called SOLMON, which automatically downloads, reads and displays image data from remote and local archives, across a broad range of solar instruments. I have also written an object for Hinode/XRT and most recently Proba2/SWAP. IDL objects are an efficient interface for users who are not directly involved with instruments to gain access to science data. In the near future, I will be conducting statistical studies of over ten years of solar active region data, with the goal of creating a completely automated (near) real time flare prediction system, to be implemented on SolarMonitor.
