Michael Kirk
Solar Physicist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Portland, Oregon, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolMichael Kirk is a solar physicist with 11 years of experience conducting heliophysics research at NASA Goddard and affiliated with Catholic University, focusing on solar dynamics, coronal holes, flares, and the impacts of solar variability on Earth. He holds a PhD in Heliophysics from New Mexico State University and combines strong analytical and modeling skills (Matlab, Python) with hands-on experience in image processing and automated feature tracking. At Goddard he has progressed from postdoctoral work in helio-informatics to a research scientist role supporting the Solar Dynamics Observatory mission. Beyond academia, he served as a Principal Scientist and has led community and student advocacy efforts, reflecting both technical leadership and organizational experience. An active contributor to the SunPy open-source project, he strengthened data integrity in solar data products by adding unit validation and tests to the widely used sunpy/map module. Based in Portland, Oregon, he brings a rare blend of operational mission support, open-source tooling, and deep-domain research expertise.
11 years of coding experience
12 years of employment as a software developer
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Heliophysics, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Heliophysics at New Mexico State UniversityBachelor of Arts (BA), Physics and Astronomy, Bachelor of Arts (BA), Physics and Astronomy at Whitman College
Github Skills (5)
sun10
astropy10
solar10
python10
astronomy9
Programming languages (6)
Github contributions (5)
sunpy/sunpy
Jan 2016 - Jun 2019
SunPy - Python for Solar Physics
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:37 commits, 5 PRs, 46 comments in 3 years 5 months
Contributions summary:Michael primarily worked on validating and handling units within the `sunpy/map` module. They implemented unit validation checks for map metadata, specifically for `CUNIT1`, `CUNIT2`, and `WAVEUNIT`, to ensure data integrity. Furthermore, they added warnings for invalid units and corrected errors. The user also added tests and docstrings to test the functionality.
physicspythonsolarsimulationpython-3
MSKirk/sunpy
Apr 2015 - Jun 2019
SunPy - Python for solar physics
Contributions:37 pushes, 10 branches in 4 years 3 months
physicspythonsolarsolar-physicssunpy
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