Patrick Kilian

Research Associate
Los Alamos, NM
Patrick Kilian did his undergrad in Physics in Würzburg, Germany. He then went to UNM and obtained a master of science in 2007. Despite falling in love with the Land of Enchantment he returned to Wuerzburg where he became interested in plasma physics. Together with two other students he wrote his own massively parallel particle-in-cell code that is still in use by several researchers. In 2010 he obtained a diploma in physics with a thesis on laser-plasma interaction. He continued with plasma physics in the group of Prof. Felix Spanier and worked on CME driven shocks in the solar wind for his PhD. In 2013-2015 he worked on electron acceleration at the Hermean bow shock with Prof. Joerg Buechner at the Max-Planck-Institute for Solar System Research in Goettingen, Germany. He then did a postdoc at the Centre for Space Research in Potchefstroom, South Africa before coming back to New Mexico in 2018. Until 2020 he was a Chick Keller Postdoctoral Fellow at the Los Alamos National Lab where he studied magnetic reconnection in astrophysical systems, before joining SSI to work on topics related to the solar wind again.