Susan Clark
Susan is broadly interested in astrophysical magnetism and the physics of the interstellar medium (ISM), from diffuse gas to dense, star-forming regions. Susan’s research tackles open questions like the structure of the Milky Way’s magnetic field, the nature of interstellar turbulence and the multi-phase ISM, and the role of magnetism in star formation. These big questions demand multiwavelength observations and new data analysis techniques. Susan and her group decipher the magnetic ISM using a combination of theory and observation. Data-wise, the group uses a wide range of tracers including gas line emission and absorption, polarized dust and synchrotron emission, starlight polarization, Zeeman splitting, and Faraday rotation. Susan is involved in a number of current and future telescope projects, and leads several efforts to maximize the science return from sensitive measurements of Galactic millimeter-wavelength emission made by cosmic microwave background experiments like the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) and the Simons Observatory (SO). Please see Susan's website for more on the Cosmic Magnetism and Interstellar Physics group.