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As a NASA astrophysicist, Dr. Madhulika Guhathakurta (also known as Lika) has had the opportunity to work as a scientist, mission designer, instrument builder, directing and managing science programs and teacher and spokesperson for NASA's mission and vision in the Heliophysics Division. Occasionally, she performs all of these roles in a single day.

Before joining NASA Headquarters, her career has focused on studying the importance of the scientific exploration of space in particular understanding the Sun as a star and its influence on the planet Earth, with research focus on understanding the magneto hydrodynamics of the Sun's outermost layer, the solar corona. She has been a Co-Investigator on five Spartan 201 missions on aboard space shuttles to study the solar corona in white-light and UV radiation and has authored over 70 publications. Another passion of Dr. Guhathakurta has been to study the solar corona during total solar eclipses of the Sun. Natural eclipses of the Sun provide a view of the corona that cannot be replicated by space-borne telescopes which are occulted to provide artificial eclipse. She has traveled as far as Mongolia to attempt to measure the coronal density, temperature and velocity of the solar corona with novel instruments. She will be traveling to Libya during the eclipse of March 29th 2006.

Dr. Guhathakurta is presently the Lead Program Scientist for NASA's initiative called "Living With a Star" (LWS) which focuses on understanding and ultimately predicting solar variability and its diverse effects on Earth, human technology and astronauts in space. The systems science behind this new kind of weather outside of Earth's terrestrial atmosphere is known as "Space Weather". She is the Program Scientist for two of NASA's missions in development, "Solar Dyanmics Observatory" SDO, scheduled to launch in August 2008 and "Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory" (STEREO), scheduled to launch in July, 2006. SDO's goal is to determine, observe and understand the dynamic behavior of the Sun on the multiple temporal and spatial scales that influence life and technology on Earth. STEREO is a two-year mission which will employ two nearly identical space-based observatories - one ahead of Earth in its orbit, the other trailing behind - to provide the first-ever stereoscopic measurements to study the Sun and the nature of its coronal mass ejections, or CMEs.

She is also presently leading two science definition teams for future missions, "Solar Probe" and "Solar Sentinels" and involved in a mission in formulation "Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP)". Solar Probe will be a historic mission, flying into one of the last unexplored regions of the solar system, the Sun's atmosphere or corona, for the first time. Approaching as close as 3 RS above the Sun's surface, Solar Probe will employ a combination of in-situ measurements and imaging to achieve the mission's primary scientific goal: to understand how the Sun's corona is heated and how the solar wind is accelerated. Solar Sentinels, an important mission for NASA's Vision for exploration will help in the understanding and prediction of Solar Energetic Particle (SEPs) and solar eruptive events, and their effects on the interplanetary environments, planets, and other solar system bodies. RBSP's science objectives are to provide understanding of how populations of relativistic electrons and ions in space are formed or changed in response to solar variations.

To achieve the systems science of Space Weather, first, a much deeper understanding of the physical processes in the Sun and Solar System that produce destructive space weather is required than is presently available. Second, an integrated understanding of the coupled Sun-Solar System must be achieved. These advances require research that cuts across traditional discipline boundaries to deliver systems science. Furthermore, in order to be truly useful to life and societal goals of LWS this will require research that solves a problem in depth, from observation, to rigorous quantitative model, to useful prediction/specification. In order to address this space weather challenge, LWS initiated an interdisciplinary research program of space missions and Targeted Research and Technology (TR&T). Thus, in addition to leading science missions for the LWS program, Dr Guhathakurta also manages a theory, modeling and data analysis program to integrate scientific output, data, and models to generate a comprehensive, systems understanding of Sun-Heliosphere-Planets coupling, supporting an interdisciplinary community of approximately 150 scientists.

The effects of solar activities and space weather phenomena on daily lives, environment, and space systems are becoming more apparent, and the need to collaborate and cooperate with the international community to reach a greater understanding of these consequences is urgent. To that effect, Dr. Guhathakurta is leading an effort in an international initiative known as the "International Living With a Star" (ILWS) consisting of all the space agencies of the world to contribute towards the scientific goal for Space Weather understanding. She is also actively involved in a grassroots effort known as "International Heliophysical Year" (IHY). A truly international endeavor, heliophysical here represents a broadening of the concept "geophysical" extending the connections from the Earth to the Sun and interplanetary space. On the 50th anniversary of the International Geophysical Year, the 2007 IHY activities will build on the success of IGY 1957 by continuing its legacy of system-wide studies of the extended heliophysical domain. Through IHY she hopes to galvanize the entire world community to contribute towards key measurements that are missing to make systems science modeling a reality and educate the general public on weather beyond Earth's immediate environment.

A native of India, Dr. Guhathakurta received her Masters in Astrophysics from University of Delhi and Ph.D. in Physics from University of Denver and University of Colorado at Boulder. Her family includes husband, Dr. Robb Gilford and two children, Tristan and Ciaran Guha-Gilford.