Eric Priest
| Eric Priest | |
|---|---|
| Born | November 7, 1943 |
| Alma mater | University of Leeds |
| Thesis | Magnetohydrodynamic neutral point theory (1970) |
| Doctoral advisor | Thomas Cowling |
Eric Ronald Priest, FRSE, FRS (born 7 November 1943) holds the Gregory Chair of Mathematics and is a Bishop Wardlaw Professor at St Andrews University.
He is a recognised authority in solar magnetohydrodynamics (or MHD for short), the study of the subtle, and often nonlinear, interaction between the Sun's magnetic field and its plasma interior or atmosphere, treated as a continuous medium. Priest is an applied mathematician and, along with the other members of his research group at St Andrews, is currently investigating a large number of solar phenomena, including sunspots, coronal heating, wave propagation, magnetic reconnection, magnetic instabilities, magnetic structures and helioseismology. This is done using mathematical modelling techniques and observational data from satellites such as SoHO, Yohkoh and TRACE, or ground based observatories such as Kitt Peak and Big Bear. In 2000 he was the James Arthur Prize Lecturer at Harvard University. Professor Priest has received a number of academic awards for his research, including Hale Prize of the American Astronomical Society (2002), and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in the same year. He is notable in the solar physics community as something of an evangelist for the importance of magnetic reconnection in driving many solar phenomena, and as an explanation of the solar coronal heating problem.
As an applied mathematician, his research interests involve constructing mathematical models for the subtle and complex ways in which magnetic fields interact with plasmas in the atmosphere of the Sun and in more exotic cosmic objects. In particular, he is trying to understand how the corona of the Sun is heated to several million degrees and how magnetic energy is converted into other forms in solar flares.
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