Moira Mary Jardine is a British astrophysicist with an interest in young stars, particularly the structure of their magnetic fields and coronae, and the mechanisms by which they interact with their disks and planets. She was promoted to a

Personal Chair Academic ranks in the United Kingdom are the titles, relative seniority and responsibility of employees in universities. In general the country has three academic career pathways: one focused on research, one on teaching, and one that combines ...

in 2012, making her the first female professor of Physics at the

University of St Andrews The University of St Andrews (, ; abbreviated as St And in post-nominals) is a public university in St Andrews, Scotland. It is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest of the four ancient universities of Scotland and, f ...

Education

Jardine was educated at the

where she was awarded a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in 1989 for research investigating

steady state model In cosmology, the steady-state model or steady-state theory was an alternative to the Big Bang theory. In the steady-state model, the density of matter in the expanding universe remains unchanged due to a continuous creation of matter, thus a ...

s of

magnetic reconnection Magnetic reconnection is a physical process occurring in electrically conducting Plasma (physics), plasmas, in which the magnetic topology is rearranged and magnetic energy is converted to kinetic energy, thermal energy, and particle accelerati ...

supervised by Eric Priest.

Career and research

Jardine's research has been a journey through the

Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Sola ...

, outwards from the

Sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...

to other stars. She began by studying the Sun, and moved on to other stars when she joined her husband,

Andrew Collier Cameron Andrew Collier Cameron is a British astronomer specialising in the discovery and characterisation of exoplanets. He is a founding co-investigator of the WASP project and served as the head of the School of Physics and Astronomy of the Universit ...

, at the

University of Sussex The University of Sussex is a public university, public research university, research university located in Falmer, East Sussex, England. It lies mostly within the city boundaries of Brighton and Hove. Its large campus site is surrounded by the ...

. In 1996, the pair transferred to the University of St Andrews, where they remain, with Jardine's research now focussing on magnetic activity of young suns. Jardine chaired the 2008 Cool Stars Conference ''Cool Stars, Stellar Systems, and the Sun'', hosted at the University of St Andrews. This was the first time this conference was held in the United Kingdom, and around 350 international astronomers were in attendance. As a member of the Science Advisory Board of the

Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) is a German research institute. It is the successor of the Berlin Observatory founded in 1700 and of the Astrophysical Observatory Potsdam (AOP) founded in 1874. The latter was the world's first ...

, she supports collaboration with other research institutes and advises on research and development programmes. Recently, Jardine has joined the editorial board of ''

Living Reviews in Solar Physics ''Living Reviews in Solar Physics'' is a peer-reviewed open-access scientific journal publishing reviews on all areas of solar and heliospheric physics. It was founded and published at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research from 2004 to ...

'' as an associate editor. Jardine's research is summarised as:

"By studying solar-like stars and their impact on orbiting planets, Moira aims to understand the origins of our solar system and the conditions that allowed life to evolve on Earth. In particular, she studies the magnetic fields of stars, since these power both the hot, X-ray-emitting corona and the supersonic wind that together can ionise or erode a planet’s atmosphere. As inputs for her models, Moira uses both magnetic maps of stellar surfaces (derived from
spectropolarimetry Polarimetry is the measurement and interpretation of the polarization of transverse waves, most notably electromagnetic waves, such as radio or light waves. Typically polarimetry is done on electromagnetic waves that have traveled through or hav ...
) and photometric observations from satellite missions. These data are coordinated through the international consortium MagICS".

Teaching

Jardine has taught courses focusing on magnetic fields and

fluid dynamics In physics, physical chemistry and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids – liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including (the study of air and other gases in motion ...

. As well as supervising PhD students and postdocs, she currently teaches AS1001 ''The Solar System'', PH4031 ''Fluids'' and AS5002 ''Magnetofluids and Space Plasmas'' at the University of St Andrews.

Awards and honours

The

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...

awarded her the Young Person's Award in 2002 for outreach work with young people in local schools, encouraging participation in the sciences. She was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and Literature, letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". ...

(FRSE) in 2013.

Personal life

Jardine was interviewed by the University of St Andrews Physics Society in 2016 to discuss life as an astronomer and the search for the perfect sky. In this interview, she discusses her journey through academia, her family and other subjects. She lives in St Andrews, with her husband

and their three children. The couple regularly collaborate, and have been known to teach each other's classes in case of emergencies, such as the early birth of their third child.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jardine, Moira Year of birth missing (living people) Living people British astrophysicists British women physicists Academics of the University of St Andrews Alumni of the University of St Andrews