Dr. Xiaojia Zhang

The McDermott Professorships were established in August 2017, funded by an anonymous gift, with the goal of providing early career support and recognition to faculty members who have established extraordinary records of research productivity, teaching excellence, and university service, and who show promise of being leaders of the UT Dallas faculty in the future.

---

“By decoding space weather through in-situ observations and data-driven modeling, we expand our society’s capacity to understand and forecast the dynamic interaction between the sun and Earth. Each piece we uncover brings us closer to pushing the boundary between space and humanity.” 

Just as powerful storms on Earth can generate massive ocean waves, solar activity can stir up “space weather” — disturbances caused by high-energy particles and strong electromagnetic waves from the sun interacting with Earth’s upper atmosphere. Interactions of these waves with charged particles give rise to a variety of phenomena, including perturbations in the planet’s magnetic field and upper atmospheric dynamics.

Dr. Xiaojia Zhang’s research is aimed at understanding this intricate wave-particle interaction process in near-Earth space. Such work is essential for predicting space weather events, which can disrupt satellite operations, GPS navigation, communication networks and other space-based technologies. She has made seminal contributions toward comprehending and predicting space weather, and has pioneered space instrumentation for early detection and detailed characterization of space weather hazards.

Zhang’s analyses of satellite observations in Earth’s magnetosphere have reshaped scientific understanding of near-Earth space dynamics, particularly the impact of charged particle interactions with whistler-mode waves and electromagnetic ion cyclotron waves on space infrastructure and satellite operations. She has also demonstrated the role of electrostatic cyclotron harmonic waves and nonlinear chorus waves in driving energetic electron precipitation from space into Earth’s atmosphere.

Zhang joined The University of Texas at Dallas’ Department of Physics and the William B. Hanson Center for Space Sciences in 2022. Prior to that, she was an associate researcher in Earth, planetary and space sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where she earned her master’s and doctoral degrees in space physics. She holds a bachelor’s degree in space physics from Peking University.

Zhang has been a member of several NASA missions, including the Juno team that is exploring Jupiter’s atmosphere, interior, magnetosphere, and its moons and ring system.

While at UCLA, Zhang discovered a new source of superfast, energetic electrons that rain down on Earth – a phenomenon known as electron precipitation. Observed by the Electron Losses and Fields Investigation CubeSats – known as ELFINs – built by students and operated at UCLA, this discovery sheds light on both the aurora borealis and the radiation hazards posed to satellites and astronauts.

Zhang also is advancing space instrumentation, leading efforts to develop compact, scientific instruments for small satellites such as the cat-sized CubeSats. She has led the development of the first miniaturized high-frequency (between 0.1 and 50 megahertz) magnetic field sensor in the United States that enables 3D radio burst early detection, exploration and tracking across the heliosphere. Designed for launch and operation using small satellites, this innovation is key for the early detection of hazardous solar eruptions and their effects on the near-Earth space environment.