Professor - Director, CASS
Employed at USU 1975
BS (1965) New York University
PhD (1970) Yale University
Research Interests:
Telephone #: (435) 797-2974
E-mail address: schunk@cc.usu.edu
Dr. Schunk's expertise lies in the general areas of plasma physics, fluid mechanics, aeronomy, space physics, electricity and magnetism, and data analysis. During his career, he has developed numerous computer models of space physics phenomena, regions, and spacecraft- environment interactions. With colleagues, he developed unique 3-dimensional time-dependent models of the ionosphere, polar wind, plasmasphere, thermosphere, plasma cloud expansions, and ionosphere/high voltage sphere interactions. He has also studied processes in the solar wind, Venus, Jupiter, and comets, as well as basic plasma physics phenomena such as plasma transport, contact potentials, electron-beam plasma interactions, shocks, and nonlinear wave-particle and wave-wave coupling. In addition, he has published numerous papers comparing model predictions with measurements, using data from several coherent and incoherent scatter radars, ionosondes, rockets, satellites, and the Space Shuttle.
Dr. Schunk has authored or co-authored more than 280 papers published in refereed scientific journals. His research is supported by NASA, NSF, Air Force, and Navy grants. He has been on the editorial advisory board of three journals, and has served on three National Academy of Sciences committees and numerous NASA and NSF committees. He is Vice-Chair of Commission C of COSPAR, which is a scientific committee of the International Council of Scientific Unions and is a member of commissions G and H of the International Union of Radio Science. He is also a member of Sigma Pi Sigma, the Society of the Sigma Xi, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.