The Alexander Chizhevsky Medal 2019

Doctor Jiajia Liu

Dr. Liu obtained his PhD degree in June 2015 from the University of Science and Technology of China with honors. Up to now, he has published an impressive 31 peer-reviewed papers in top journals, including Nature Communications and Nature Physics. Out of those, he has led 13 peer-reviewed papers as the first or corresponding author.

Jiajia is receiving this medal in recognition of several accomplishments. He carried out research in a number of areas of solar and space physics. At very high standards, he combines complex physics behind various phenomena, like solar jets, MHD waves and coronal mass ejections, with the latest advanced mathematical and computer science techniques, including machine learning for forecasting space weather.

Dr. Liu has, for the first time, introduced the novel techniques of computer vision and machine learning into the area of CME arrival time prediction. By training machine learning algorithms with historical data, and applying advanced convolution neural networks on single observations, he achieved a significant progress in CME arrival time forecast, with an accuracy of less than 12 hours. Importantly, he created a free of charge user-friendly software in order to allow the scientific community to benefit from his recently implemented improved space weather forecasting approach.

Dr. Liu has been awarded with national honors already during his PhD. As an outstanding undergraduate student, his academic performance was ranked in the top 10 percent of students in their grade and major, and consequently has been awarded with the Chinese National Scholarship for Doctoral Students. Selected high-quality publications of Jiajia have been distinguished with national outstanding paper awards. As fourth in the world, one of his excellent works has been highlighted by the renowned American Astronomical Society. As a natural continuation of this successful path, Dr. Jiajia Liu is now awarded with the Alexander Chizhevsky Medal, in order to honor his early-career outstanding and innovative achievements in space