- What is your name, your nationality and your educational background?
- My name is Michael Haahr. I come from Denmark, where I took a master's programme in computational astrophysics.
- Where have you studied before and in what field?
- I have taken both a bachelor's in physics and a bachelor's in computer science at the University of Copenhagen. After my bachelor's I took a master's degree in computational physics, also at the University of Copenhagen. For my thesis project I implemented and tested a GPU version of an MHD solver for the DISPATCH framework.
- When did you start working at ITA? What is your position here?
- I started working at ITA 1. September 2021 as a doctoral research fellow (Ph.D.) where I joined the RoCS research group.
- What are you going to study?
- I am going to study how particles get accelerated in the solar atmosphere. More specifically I will help develop and use the tools needed to understand how charged particles behave in the solar atmosphere.
- What brought you to ITA/ RoCS/ Norway in general?
- My family on my mother's side comes from Norway and I always wanted a chance to experience the beautiful landscape. However, the main reason for choosing RoCS was the research being done here. I was especially interested in the mix between physics and computer science where RoCS offers many exciting possibilities.
Lastly, my master thesis supervisor spoke highly of ITA/RoCS which influenced my choice.
- What do you expect from this experience at ITA?
- I expect to be part of the community at the forefront of numerical modeling of the solar atmosphere. I hope that my time at RoCS will prepare me for a career within astrohpysics.