Judit Bergfalk

I'm a graduate student at the University of Colorado Boulder, working with Dr. Dave Brain to study the Martian plasma environment. My research focuses on using data from two spacecraft, MAVEN and Mars Express, to understand the dynamics and variability of the Martian plasma environment and how this variability influenced Mars's climate history. I’ve shared my research at conferences in San Francisco, CA and Washington, DC, and at a team meeting in Bern, Switzerland, hosted by the International Space Science Institute. I'm also part of the science team for EscaPADE, a future dual-spacecraft mission to Mars that will further investigate how the Martian hybrid magnetosphere interacts with the solar wind.

As an undergraduate student, I worked with Dr. Anthony Villano on dark matter research. My research team developed a workshop on producing rotation curves and published in The Journal of Open Source Education. I also participated in the Research and Education Collaborative Occultation Network (RECON) project, working with Dr. John Keller and Dr. Marc Buie on stellar occultation campaigns. I helped coordinate observations with amateur astronomers and high school students across the US and Canada, contributing to successful observations of the Trojan asteroid Eurybates, a NASA Lucy Mission target. I also worked with researchers at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information on CrowdMag,  a citizen-science phone application for space weather detection. The main goal of my work was to analyze CrowdMag data and compare it with observatory measurements.

In my free time, I love traveling and hiking with my husband and our son. I grew up in Hungary so whenever we visit to Europe, we visit my mom there. We also have two German Shephard mixes, Thelma and Louise, who used to join us on long walks but now prefer shorter ones as they've gotten older. I’m passionate about all fields of astronomy, especially how the solar wind interacts with planetary atmospheres. I also love challenges and am always eager to learn something new.