Dr. Christina Plainaki
ISWAT Responsibilities: H4 Cluster Co-Moderator
E-mail: christina.plainaki@asi.it
Christina Plainaki is a physicist with research activity in the fields of circumterrestrial and planetary Space Weather. She got her PhD in solar cosmic ray physics in 2007 from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (Greece), having developed a Space Weather model for the determination of the response of the near-Earth space environment to solar energetic particle (SEP) events and in particular for the reconstruction of the SEP spectrum in the Earth's vicinity. She then worked at Italy’s National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF), focusing her studies on the interactions of plasma and energetic particles with the environments of planetary bodies in the Inner (e.g., Mercury, Venus) or Outer (e.g., Jupiter, Galilean moons, Saturnian moons) Solar System. Since 2017, Christina Plainaki is a staff Researcher of the Italian Space Agency (ASI). She is strongly involved in missions dedicated to the robotic exploration of our Solar System and to the study of the Sun.
Research interests
- Planetary Space Weather science: modeling and data analysis based on remote and in situ observations
- Plasma-surface interactions in Outer Solar System bodies
- Exosphere generation/loss mechanisms: applications to Jupiter’s icy moons
- Solar Energetic Particle - Ground Level Enhancement events
Awards
- EGU/PS Division Outstanding Young Scientist Award (2014), for “fundamental studies on cosmic ray physics and on the interaction of icy moons surfaces with planetary magnetospheres”
- ESWW International Alexander Chizhevsky Medal for space weather and space climate (2014), for "outstanding results as a young scientist in space weather"
Scientific community services
- Coordinator of the national Space Weather Working Group of ASI
- ASI Project Scientist for the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo/SERENA and NASA JUNO/JIRAM experiments (since 2017)
- ASI Project Scientist for the Italian participation in the ESA/JUICE mission (since 2017)
- Board member for national funding calls (Solar System science division)
- External Reviewer for NASA calls (Heliophysics Division)
- Officer (secretary) of the IAMAS/ICPAE (2015 – 2019)
- Leader of the 2014 ISSI International Team “Towards a global unified model of Europa's exosphere in view of the JUICE mission”
- Convener/Co-convener of various sessions within the EGU, EPSC, ESWW meetings