Joanna Bridge, a junior in engineering physics at the University of Illinois, has been awarded a prestigious Kirkwood Women-in-Engineering Scholarship by the College of Engineering. Professor Michael C. Hirschi, assistant dean for undergraduate programs, announced the award on July 9.
Bridge is spending the summer working on a solar physics research project at Montana State University in Bozeman. Her project involves studying magnetic fields in active regions on the sun's surface to understand how energy is stored in the fields and then released. Bridge is modeling these solar magnetic fields with the goal of developing an algorithm that will predict the amount of magnetic energy built up in emerging active regions in the photosphere. Creating a successful model will allow scientists to predict how much energy will be released by a solar flare.
After completing her senior year at Illinois, Bridge plans to enroll in graduate school to pursue a PhD in astrophysics.