Sciences and Exploration Directorate

Albert Young-Ming Shih

(RSCH AST, SOLAR & SOLAR TRSTRL STD)

Albert Young-Ming Shih's Contact Card & Information.
Email: albert.y.shih@nasa.gov
Phone: 301.286.1843
Org Code: 671
Address:
NASA/GSFC
Mail Code 671
Greenbelt, MD 20771
Employer:
NASA

Brief Bio


Dr. Albert Shih was born and raised in Southern California.  He obtained his BSc in physics and mathematics from the California Institute of Technology, and his PhD in physics from the University of California, Berkeley.  He was a GSFC GSRP fellow from 2004 to 2007, and then he started at GSFC as an NPP fellow in 2009. In 2010, he was hired by GSFC as a research astrophysicist in the Solar Physics Laboratory.

Dr. Shih primarily studies ion acceleration in solar flares, mainly through gamma-ray spectroscopy and imaging using RHESSI, as well as analyzing Fermi observations.  He is also actively involved in operating current instrumentation and developing next-generation instrumentation.  He is the Deputy Mission Scientist of RHESSI, a NASA Small Explorer spacecraft launched in 2002, and he was the Solar Porject Scientist of HEROES, a NASA hard X-ray balloon instrument that flew in 2013.

Dr. Shih is the project manager/project scientist for GRIPS, a NASA Low-Cost-Access-to-Space balloon mission, being led by the University of California, Berkeley.  GRIPS will use gamma-ray observations to address unanswered questions about ion and electron acceleration in flares.  GRIPS combines 3D position-sensitive germanium detectors (3D-GeDs) with a novel gamma-ray imaging design to provide a near-optimal combination of high-resolution gamma-ray imaging, spectroscopy, and polarimetry, with an unparalleled gamma-ray angular resolution of 12.5 arcseconds.

Selected Publications


Refereed

2015. "Hard X-Ray Imaging of Individual Spectral Components in Solar Flares." The Astrophysical Journal Letters 811 L1 [Full Text] [10.1088/2041-8205/811/1/L1] [Journal Article/Letter]

2014. "SIMULATION OF ENERGETIC NEUTRAL ATOMS FROM SOLAR ENERGETIC PARTICLES." ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL LETTERS 793 [10.1088/2041-8205/793/2/L37] [Journal Article/Letter]

2013. "High Energy Replicated Optics to Explore the Sun: Hard X-ray balloon-borne telescope." Proceedings of the 2013 IEEE Aerospace Conference [-10.1109/AERO.2013.6497198] [Journal Article/Letter]

2013. "Solar Eruptive Events (SEE) 2020 Mission Concept." ArXiv e-prints arXiv:1311.5243- [Journal Article/Letter]

2012. "The Gamma-Ray Imager/Polarimeter for Solar flares (GRIPS)." Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2012: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray. Proceedings of the SPIE 8443 84434H [Full Text] [10.1117/12.926450] [Journal Article/Letter]

2010. "Observations and Interpretations of Energetic Neutral Hydrogen Atoms from the December 5, 2006 Solar Event." TWELFTH INTERNATIONAL SOLAR WIND CONFERENCE. AIP Conference Proceedings 1216 592 [Full Text] [10.1063/1.3395935] [Journal Article/Letter]

2009. "RHESSI Observations of the Proportional Acceleration of Relativistic >0.3 MeV Electrons and >30 MeV Protons in Solar Flares." The Astrophysical Journal Letters 698 L152 [Full Text] [10.1088/0004-637X/698/2/L152] [Journal Article/Letter]