Taking Back Astronomy

Dr. Jason Lisle graduated summa cum laude from Ohio Wesleyan University where he double-majored in physics and astronomy and minored in mathematics. He received his master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of Colorado in Boulder. Dr. Lisle has done extensive research in solar astrophysics at JILA (Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics) using the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft. His doctoral dissertation “Probing the Dynamics of Solar Supergranulation and Its Interaction with Magnetism” explored the nature of solar subsurface weather, convection, large-scale solar flows, and near-surface magnetism. Dr. Lisle’s scientific discoveries include the following: the detection of polar alignment of supergranulation, the cause of the large-scale disk convergence anomaly seen in correlation tracking of solar Doppler data, the detection of solar giant cell boundaries, and the cause of the “wavelike” characteristics seen in solar power spectra.