College of Science & Engineering

 

 

Dr Graham S. Kerr
School of Physics and Astronomy
Fellowship	Royal Society's University Research Fellowship (URF) January 2026 to December 2033
Area of Research	Astrophysics, specifically solar physics

 

 

How would you describe your research briefly?

This generous fellowship from the Royal Society will allow me and my future group to study eruptions on the Sun called solar flares.

Flares are important events to understand fully, both due to the fundamental physical process at play during these extreme events, and due to the impacts they can have on our technology here on Earth.

Why did you choose to pursue a fellowship in your research career?

I did my undergraduate and graduate studies at the University of Glasgow, before spending 8.5 years in the USA working at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (NASA/GSFC) first as a postdoc on the NASA Postdoctoral Program, and then as a co-operative scientist via the Catholic University of America.

During my time in the USA I really honed my expertise in the modelling of the flare atmosphere, and I was fortunate to work with many amazing scientists, including getting involved in mission development and science policy.

However, I was what is known as a soft-money researcher, dependent on research grants, which was fine and was working, but I started to feel that if I wanted to be able to build my own research group and be a leader, that I should investigate faculty jobs.

What attracted you to this specific fellowship?

The Royal Society’s URF is specifically designed to help an early career researcher develop an independent career, providing extensive support and mentorship along that path.

It is also a very generous fellowship, providing substantial funds that will allow me to hire graduate students and postdocs alongside the computing resources that I need. Building a research program takes time and people, which the URF provides.

Overall, it provides a wonderful opportunity to become a future leader in the field and, ultimately, a faculty position.

Why work at the University of Glasgow?

Of course, the natural place for me to want to do that was here in Glasgow.

The Astronomy & Astrophysics group within the School of Physics and Astronomy are world leaders in solar physics, especially in the field of solar flares. They have expertise in both high-energy aspects of flares, as well as in the physics of the flare chromosphere. It really is the natural place to take my fellowship.

Not only was the University very supportive of my URF application, but they also agreed to provide an additional £100k via a Lord Kelvin Adam Smith Fellowship, which will be of great help as I build my group.

I’m really excited to be returning to my academic home armed with the experiences that I gained through my post-PhD career.

My fellowship research in the modeling of flares and the world-leading observational research being done at Glasgow are highly complementary; I’m sure that together we will do lots of exciting work to understand solar and stellar flares.

What is the aim of the fellowship?

Our Sun produces eruptions, including solar flares, that release tremendous amounts of energy and radiation. These eruptions, while being spectacular, can cause damaging effects here on Earth, for example affecting power generation, and satellite communications/GPS.

Comprehensive understanding of solar flares is therefore both a fascinating challenge, and vital in our evermore technologically-dependent society.

Additionally, the many fundamental physical processes involved in flares occur throughout the Universe, including on other stars and in the aurora. The Sun also provides a unique laboratory to study these processes in an extreme environment up close; we can spatially observe the effects of energy release, transport, and dissipation.

Studying the dramatic brightenings in the Sun’s atmosphere that characterize flares, via combinations of observations and simulations, sheds light on the energy release, transport, and dissipation processes.

However, we know that our flare models that are based on energy transported predominantly by accelerated electrons are incomplete. Important model-observational discrepancies tell us that we are missing key physical ingredients.

I will investigate the roles of alternative manifestations of energy released during flares (including magnetic/plasma waves, which have roles in Earth's magnetosphere and the aurora, and accelerated ions), to fully account for flare energetics.

These new generation of simulations will be critically compared to observations, and their radiative predictions exploited. Additionally, stellar flare extreme-UV emission plays a crucial role in exoplanet habitability, but stellar extreme-UV observations are not easily obtainable.

In the latter part of my fellowship, armed with more holistic solar/stellar flares models, I will also determine if optical/UV flare observations can be used to predict their extreme-UV counterparts.

 

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First published: 9 September 2025