Dr. John C. Dorelli
Electrodynamics Branch
Laboratory for Extraterrestrial Physics
NASA/GSFC

Ph.D. University of Iowa (1999)
B.S. Purdue University (1993)

Dr. Dorelli's broad research interests lie in computational and theoretical
plasma physics.  He is currently an NRC postdoc at the Goddard Space Flight 
Center, where he is engaged in research on the theory of magnetic reconnection.
His interest in magnetic reconnection began while he was a postdoc
at Los Alamos, where he developed explicit finite difference methods for 
solving the resistive Hall MHD equations.  As a graduate student, he developed
new implicit finite difference techniques for solving the Fokker-Planck 
equation in an inhomogeneous fully ionized plasma with steep temperature
and density gradients.  His other research interests include the theory of
coronal heating, nonequilibrium thermodynamics of the solar corona, and
solar wind acceleration.