Paul J. Wright

Bio

I am (soon to be) a postdoc in the W. W. Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory at Stanford University. My research interests are in the application of machine learning in heliophysics.

Prior to coming to Stanford, I completed my PhD at the University of Glasgow under the supervision of Dr Iain G. Hannah. My PhD research concentrated on one of the unsolved problems in Heliophysics—the coronal heating problem. During my PhD I gained expertise in numerous time-series analysis techniques and methods for recovering the differential emission measure (an ill-posed inverse problem) from a wide range of spectroscopic and narrowband data. I am a member of the NuSTAR heliophysics working group and I led the analysis of the first solar flare observed by the NuSTAR hard X-ray astrophysics imaging spectrometer. I have also developed a stellar flare detection algorithm based on the observations obtained by the Kepler space telescope to determine the superflare rate of the Sun.

News

28/04/19

Machine Learning dataset prepared from the SDO Mission available here

28/04/19

New Website

04/2019

Awarded PhD; Thesis title: Energetics of small solar flares and brightenings

Publications

Complete list of publications on NASA ADS.

Machine Learning Dataset Prepared From the NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory Mission

Richard Galvez, David F. Fouhey, Meng Jin, Alexandre Szenicer, Andrés Muñoz-Jaramillo, Mark C. M. Cheung, Paul J. Wright, Monica G. Bobra, Yang Liu, James Mason, Rajat Thomas

Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 2019

Paper Data

DeepEM: A Deep Learning Approach for DEM Inversion

Paul J. Wright, Mark Cheung, Rajat Thomas, Richard Galvez, Alexandre Szenicer, Meng Jin, Andrés Muñoz-Jaramillo, David Fouhey

Helio-ML eBook, 2018

Blog post Python Notebook

First NuSTAR Limits on Quiet Sun Hard X-Ray Transient Events

Andrew J. Marsh, David M. Smith, Lindsay Glesener, Iain G. Hannah, Brian W. Grefenstette, Amir Caspi, Säm Krucker, Hugh S. Hudson, Kristin K. Madsen, Stephen M. White, Matej Kuhar, Paul J. Wright, Steven E. Boggs, Finn E. Christensen, William W. Craig, Charles J. Hailey, Fiona A. Harrison, Daniel Stern, William W. Zhang

Astrophysical Journal, 2017

Paper

Observations of Reconnection Flows in a Flare on the Solar Disk

Juntao Wang, Paulo J. A. Simões, Natasha L. S. Jeffrey, Lyndsay Fletcher, Paul J. Wright, Iain G. Hannah

The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 2017

Paper

Microflare Heating of a Solar Active Region Observed with NuSTAR, Hinode/XRT, and SDO/AIA

Paul J. Wright, Iain G. Hannah, Brian W. Grefenstette, Lindsay Glesener, Säm Krucker, Hugh S. Hudson, David M. Smith, Andrew J. Marsh, Stephen M. White, Matej Kuhar

The Astrophysical Journal, 2017

Paper Poster UKSP Nugget Blog post

Evidence of Significant Energy Input in the Late Phase of a Solar Flare from NuSTAR X-Ray Observations

Matej Kuhar, Säm Krucker, Iain G. Hannah, Lindsay Glesener, Pascal Saint-Hilaire, Brian W. Grefenstette, Hugh S. Hudson, Stephen M. White, David M. Smith, Andrew J. Marsh, Paul J. Wright, Steven E. Boggs, Finn E. Christensen, William W. Craig, Charles J. Hailey, Fiona A. Harrison, Daniel Stern, William W. Zhang

The Astrophysical Journal, 2017

Paper

Curriculum Vitae

1 Page PDF here

NASA FDL 2019 May '19 - now

Heliophysics Mentor
Super-resolution Magnetograms
Stanford University May '19 - now

Postdoctoral Research Fellow (HMI)
W. W. Hansen Experimental Physics Lab.
University of Glasgow Oct '14 - Apr '19

PhD Student
Physics & Astrophysics
Smithsonian Institution Jan - Mar '19

Visiting Scientist
Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
NASA FDL 2018 Jun - Aug '18

Heliophysics Researcher
Space Weather Team
NASA GSFC Apr - May '16

Visiting Researcher
Goddard Space Flight Center
SAO/Harvard University Aug '13 - Jun '14

Research Scholar
Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
Dudley House, Harvard University
University of Southampton Oct '10 - Jul '14

MPhys Student
Physics & Astrophysics with a Year Abroad
First Class Honours