1. Research Interests
  2. Education
  3. Positions
  4. Publications
  5. PhD Students

Bob Weigel
Department of Physics and Astronomy
George Mason University
4400 University Drive, 3F3
Fairfax, VA 22030
rweigel@gmu.edu

1 Research Interests

Magnetospheric physics and geomagnetism, space weather, and solar wind/magnetosphere/ionosphere modeling

2 Education

  • University of Texas at Austin, PhD, Physics, 2000

  • University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, MS, Physics, 1997

  • University of Wisconsin–Platteville, BS, Mechanical Engineering, 1995

3 Positions

  • Professor, 2021–, Department of Physics and Astronomy, George Mason University

  • Associate Professor, 2015–, Department of Physics and Astronomy, George Mason University

  • Associate Professor, 2011-2015, School of Physics, Astronomy, and Computational Sciences, George Mason University

  • Director, 2009-, Space Weather Laboratory, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA

  • Assistant Professor, 2006-2011, Department of Computational and Data Sciences, George Mason University

  • Research Scientist, 2003-2006, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO

  • Postdoctoral Researcher, 2001-2003, National Academy of Sciences at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD

4 Publications

  • Wilkerson, L.A., R. S. Weigel, D. Thomas, D. Bor, E. J. Oughton, C. T. Gaunt, C. C. Balch, M. J. Wiltberger, A. Pulkkinen, GIC–Related Observations During the May 2024 Geomagnetic Storm in the United States, Space Weather, 2026, doi | pdf.

  • Maria Kuznetsova; Martin Reiss; Edmund Henley Henley; Eric Adamson Adamson; Suzy Bingham Bingham; Mario M. Bisi; Francois-Xavier Bocquet; Laura Boucheron; Min-Yang Chou; Claudio Corti; Gian Luca Delzanno; Richard A. Fallows; Biagio Forte; Alexi Glover; Alexa Halford; Carl J. Henney; K.D. Leka; Mark Miesch Miesch; Karin Muglach Muglach; Mathew Owens Owens; Nick Pogorelov; Michelangelo Romano; Pete Riley; Christine Verbeke Verbeke; Jack Wang; Kathryn Whitman; Jia Yue; Yihua Zheng; Charles N. Arge; Sean Bruinsma; Federico Da Dalt; Katherine Garcia-Sage; Joycelyn Jones; Maya Levisohn; M. Leila Mays; Judit Palacios; Liutauras Rusaitis Rusaitis; Evangelia Samara Samara; Ioanna Tsagouri Tsagouri; Jonathan Vigh; Robert Weigel; Chiu Wiegand Wiegand; Clayton Allison Allison; Ricky Egeland Egeland; Dinesha V. Hegde; Michael Kirk; Adam Kubaryk; Dibyendu Nandi; Philip Quinn; Syed Raza Raza; Elana Resnick; Talwinder Singh; Luke Stegeman, Assessment of Space Weather Modeling Capabilities and Transition to Operations, Advances in Space Research, 2026, doi | pdf.

  • Thomas, D., Weigel, R.S., Quaresima, G., Pulkkinen, A., and D.T. Welling, ∇·B and outer boundary errors and Biot-Savart in magnetosphere MHD simulations, Journal of Geophysical Research–Space Physics, 2025, doi | [pdf](pubs/Thomas_2025_Div_B_Outer_Boundary_and_Biot_Savart_in_Magnetosphere_MHD_Simulations.pdf.

  • Stephens, G.K., Weigel, R.S., Sitnov, M.I., and Tsyganenko, N.A., Reconstructing Magnetotail Reconnection Events Using Data Mining is Feasible and Repeatable, Journal of Geophysical Research–Machine Learning and Computation, 2025, | pdf.

  • Pulkkinen, A., P. Schuck, E. Bernabeu, R.S. Weigel, and R. Arritt, A novel approach for geoelectric field response scaling factors used in geomagnetic storm hazard assessments, Space Weather, 2025, doi | pdf.

  • Stephens, G. K., M. I. Sitnov, R. S. Weigel, and N. A. Tsyganenko, A. J., Empirical reconstruction of pre-1995 extreme storms using ML-derived solar wind inputs. Space Weather, 2025, doi | pdf.

  • Winter, E.L and R.S. Weigel, Recursive Formula for the Trial Function Boundary Function, Computing Open, 2025, doi | pdf.

  • Thomas, D. and R.S. Weigel, A. Pulkkinen, P.W. Schuck, D. T. Welling, C. M. Ngwira, What Drove the Carrington Event? An Analysis of Currents and Geospace Regions, Journal of Geophysical Research, 2024, doi | pdf.

  • Stephens, G.K., M.I. Sitnov, R.S. Weigel, D.L. Turner, N.A. Tsyganenko, A.J. Rogers, K. Genestreti, and J. A. Slavin, Global structure of magnetotail reconnection revealed by mining space magnetometer data, Journal of Geophysical Research–Space Physics, 2023, doi | pdf.

  • Winter, E., and R.S. Weigel, nnde: A Python package for solving differential equations using neural networks, Journal of Open Source Software, 2022, doi | pdf.

  • Weigel, R.S., Vandegriff, J.V., Faden, J.B., et al., A Standard for Accessing Heliophysics Time Series Data, Journal of Geophysical Research–Space Physics, 2021, doi | pdf.

  • Blake, S.P., Pulkkinen, Schuck, P.W., Glocer, A., D.M. Oliveira, D. Welling, R.S. Weigel, G. Quaresima, Recreating the Horizontal Magnetic Field at Colaba during the Carrington Event with Geospace Simulations, Space Weather, 2021, doi | pdf.

  • Battams, K., R.S. Weigel, H.A. Dennison, R.A. Howard, and J.L. Lean, Analysis of Coronal Brightness Correlations with Solar Irradiance Indices, Solar Physics, 2020, doi | pdf.

  • Weigel, R.S. and P. Cilliers, A Test of the Frequency Independence Assumption of the Power System Parameters used in Geomagnetically Induced Current Calculations, Space Weather, 2019, doi | pdf.

  • Harvey, C. and Weigel, R.S., Transplant2Mongo: Python Scripts that Insert Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) Data in MongoDB. Journal of Open Research Software, 7:5, 2019, doi | pdf.

  • Battams, K., R.S. Weigel, and B.M. Gallagher, A Global Survey of EUV Coronal Power Spectra, Solar Physics, 2019, doi | pdf.

  • Liemohn, M.W., J.P. McCollough, V.K. Jordanova, C.M. Ngwira, S.K. Morley, C. Cid, W.K. Tobiska, P. Wintoft, N.Y. Ganushkina, D.T. Welling, S. Bingham, M. Balikhin, H. Opgenoorth, M. Engel, R. S. Weigel, H.J. Singer, D. Buresova, S. Bruinsma, I. Zhelavskaya, Y.Y. Shprits, and R. Vasile. Model evaluation guidelines for geomagnetic index predictions. Space Weather, 2018, doi | pdf.

  • Welling, D.T., C. M. Ngwira, Opgenoorth, H., J. D. Haiducek, N.P. Savani, S.K. Morley, C. Cid, R.S. Weigel, J.M. Weygand, J.R. Woodroffe, H.J. Singer, L. Rosenqvist, M.W. Liemohn, Recommendations for Next-Generation Ground Magnetic Perturbation Validation, Space Weather, 2018, doi | pdf.

  • Weigel, R.S., A Comparison of Methods for Estimating the Geoelectric Field, Space Weather, 2017, doi | pdf.

  • Pulkkinen, A.A., Bernabeu, E. Thomson, A.W.P., Viljanen A., Pirjola, R.J., Boteler, D., Eichner, J., Cilliers, P.J., Welling, D., Savani, N.P., Weigel, R.S., Love, J.J., Balch, C.C., Ngwira, C.M., Crowley, G., Schultz, A., Kataoka, R., Anderson, B.J. Fugate, D., Simpson, J.J, Macalester, M.H., Geomagnetically induced currents: science, engineering and applications readiness, Space Weather, 2017, doi | pdf.

  • Veibell, V., Weigel, R.S., and Denton, R.E., Solar wind, F10.7, and geomagnetic activity relationship to the equatorial plasma mass density at geosynchronous orbit, Space Weather, 2016, doi | pdf.

  • Glocer, A., L. Rastatter, M. Kuznetsova, A. Pulkkinen, H. J. Singer , C. Balch , D. Weimer , D. Welling , M. Wiltberger, J. Raeder, R. Weigel, J. McCollough, and S. Wing, Community-wide validation of geospace model local K-index predictions to support model transition to operations, Space Weather, 2016, doi | pdf.

  • McCracken, J.M and Weigel, R.S., Nonparametric causal inference for bivariate time series, Physical Review E, 93, 2016, doi | pdf.

  • Nwankwo, V., Chakrabarti, S.K, Weigel, R.S., Effects of Plasma Drag on Low Earth Orbiting Satellites due to Solar Forcing Induced Perturbations and Heating, Advances in Space Research, 2015, doi | pdf.

  • A. Kercher and R.S. Weigel, Removal of pseudo-convergence in coplanar and near-coplanar Riemann problems of ideal magnetohydrodynamics solved using finite volume schemes, Journal of Computational Physics, 2015, doi | pdf.

  • J.M. McCracken, R.S. Weigel, Convergent Cross-Mapping and Pairwise Asymmetric Inference, Physical Review E, 2014, doi | pdf.

  • Pulkkinen, A., L. Rastätter, M. Kuznetsova, H. Singer, C. Balch, D. Weimer, G. Toth, A. Ridley, T. Gombosi, M. Wiltberger, J. Raeder and R. Weigel, Community-wide validation of geospace model ground magnetic field perturbation predictions to support model transition to operations, Space Weather, 2013, doi | pdf.

  • Rastätter, L., M.M. Kuznetsova, A. Glocer, D. Welling, X. Meng, J. Raeder, M. Wiltberger, V.K. Jordanova, Y. Yu, S. Zaharia, R.S. Weigel, S. Sazykin, R. Boynton, H. Wei, V. Eccles, W. Horton, M.L. Mays, and J. Gannon, Geospace environment modeling 2008–2009 challenge: Dst index, Space Weather, 2013, doi | pdf.

  • Rowland, W. and R.S. Weigel, Intra-calibration of Particle Detectors on a Three-Axis Stabilized Geostationary Platform, Space Weather, 2012, doi | pdf.

  • A. Pulkkinen, M. Kuznetsova, A. Ridley, J. Raeder, D. Weimer, R.S. Weigel, M. Wiltberger, G. Millward, L. Rastter, M. Hesse, H.J. Singer and A. Chulaki, Geospace Environment Modeling 2008-2009 Challenge: ground magnetic field perturbations, Space Weather, 2011, doi | pdf.

  • Weigel, R.S., Comment on “Lies, damned lies and statistics (in Geology)” by Vermeesch, 2009, Eos, 2011, doi | pdf.

  • Weigel, R.S., Solar wind density influence on geomagnetic storm intensity, Journal of Geophysical Research, 2010, doi | pdf.

  • Weigel, R.S., D.M. Lindholm, A. Wilson, and J. Faden, TSDS: high-performance merge, subset, and filter software for time series-like data, Earth Science Informatics, 2010 doi | pdf.

  • Weigel, R.S., M. Zhizhin, D. Mishin, D. Kokovin, E. Kihn, and J. Faden, VxOware: Software for Managing Virtual Observatory Metadata, Earth Science Informatics, 2010, doi | pdf.

  • Faden, J.B., R.S. Weigel, J. Merka and R.H.W. Friedel, Autoplot: a browser for scientific data on the web, Earth Science Informatics, 2010, doi | pdf.

  • Borne, K., Wallin, J., and Weigel, R., The New Computational and Data Sciences Undergraduate Program at George Mason University, The International Conference on Computational Science, 2009, doi | pdf.

  • Weigel, R.S., D.N. Baker, D. Aaron Roberts, and T. King, Using Virtual Observatories for Heliophysics Research, Eos, 2009, doi | pdf.

  • Wiltberger, M., R.S. Weigel, W. Lotko, and J A. Fedder, Modeling seasonal variations of auroral particle precipitation in a global-scale magnetosphere-ionosphere simulation, Journal of Geophysical Research, 2009 doi | pdf.

  • Weigel, R.S., Solar wind time history contribution to the day-of-year variation in geomagnetic activity, Journal of Geophysical Research, 2007, doi | pdf.

  • Baker, D.N., Wiltberger, M.J., Weigel, R.S., and Elkington, S.R. Present status and future challenges of modeling the Sun Earth end-to-end system, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, 2007, doi | pdf.

  • Doxas, I., W. Horton, J. Lyon, M. Wiltberger, R. S. Weigel, Branch prediction and speculative execution: A magnetospheric data assimilation scheme for space weather forecasting, Space Weather, 2007 doi | pdf.

  • Weigel, R.S., T. Detman, E.J. Rigler, and D.N. Baker, Decision theory and the analysis of rare event space weather forecasts, Space Weather, 2006, doi | pdf.

  • Wiltberger, M., Weigel, R.S., Gehmeyr, M., Guild, T., Analysis and Visualization of Space Science Models Outputs and Data with CISM-DX, Journal of Geophysical Research, 2005 doi | pdf.

  • Sitnov, M.I, A.Y. Ukhorskiy, A.S. Sharma, and R.S. Weigel, Roles of Chaos, Self-Organized Criticality and Phase Transitions in Magnetospheric Physics, in Multiscale Coupling of Sun-Earth Processes, Liu, A.T.Y., Y. Kamide, and G. Consolini eds., 2005, doi | pdf.

  • Weigel, R.S., D.N. Baker, D. Vassiliadis, and E.J. Rigler, Predictability of Geomagnetic Fluctuations Based on Solar Wind Conditions, IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, 200 doi | pdf.

  • Baker, D.N., Weigel, R.S., Rigler, E.J., McPherron, R.L., Vassiliadis, D., Arge, C.N., Siscoe, G.L., and Spence, H.E., Sun-to-magnetosphere modeling: CISM forecast model development using linked empirical methods, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, 2004, doi | pdf.

  • Rigler, E.J., Baker, D.N., Weigel, R.S., Vassiliadis, D., Klimas, A.J., Adaptive linear prediction of radiation belt electrons using the Kalman filter, Space Weather, 2004, doi | pdf.

  • Spence, H., Baker, D., Burns, A., Guild, T., Huang, C.-L., Siscoe, G., and Weigel, R., Center for integrated space weather modeling metrics plan and initial model validation results, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, 2004, doi | pdf.

  • Siscoe, G., Baker, D., Weigel, R., Hughes, J., and Spence, H., Roles of empirical modeling within CISM, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, 2004, doi | pdf.

  • Vassiliadis, D., Weigel, R.S., Baker, D.N., Kanekal, S.G., and Klimas, A..J., Probing the solar wind-inner magnetospheric coupling: validation of relativistic electron flux models, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, 2004, doi | pdf.

  • Weigel, R.S., D.N. Baker, Probability Distribution Invariance of 1-Minute Auroral-Zone Geomagnetic Field Fluctuations, Geophysical Research Letters, 2004, doi | pdf.

  • Weigel, R.S., D. Vassiliadis, and A.J. Klimas, Solar-Wind Coupling to Ground Magnetic Fields and their Time Derivatives, Geophysical Research Letters, 2003, doi | pdf.

  • Weigel, R.S., D. Vassiliadis, and A.J. Klimas, Precursor analysis and Prediction of Large-Amplitude Energetic Electron Events, Space Weather, 2003, doi | pdf.

  • Weigel, R.S., D. Vassiliadis, and A.J. Klimas, Solar-Wind Coupling to and Predictability of Ground Magnetic Fields and their Time Derivatives, Journal of Geophysical Research, 2003, doi | pdf.

  • Horton, W., R.S. Weigel, D. Vassiliadis, and I. Doxas, Substorm Classification with the WINDMI Model, Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics, 2003, doi | pdf.

  • Vassiliadis, D., R.S. Weigel, A.J. Klimas, S.G. Kanekal, and R.A. Mewaldt, Modes of Energy Transfer Between the Solar Wind and the Inner Magnetosphere, Physics of Plasmas, 2003, doi | pdf.

  • Vassiliadis D, A.J. Klimas, R.S. Weigel, D.N. Baker, E.J. Rigler, S.G. Kanekal, T. Nagai, S.F. Fung, R.W.H. Friedel, T.E. Cayton, Structure of Earth’s outer radiation belt inferred from long-term electron flux dynamics, Geophysical Research Letters, 2003, doi | pdf.

  • Vassiliadis, D., A.J. Klimas, S.G. Kanekal, D.N. Baker, and R.S. Weigel, Long-Term Solar-Cycle, and Seasonal Response of Magnetospheric Energetic Electrons to the Solar Wind Speed, Journal of Geophysical Research–Space Physics, 2002, doi | pdf

  • Doxas, I., Horton, W., and Weigel, R., Using particle simulations for parameter tuning of dynamical models of the magnetotail, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, 2002, doi | pdf.

  • Weigel, R.S., D. Vassiliadis, and A.J. Klimas, Coupling of the Solar Wind to Temporal Fluctuations in Ground Magnetic Fields, Geophysical Research Letters, 2002, doi | pdf.

  • Horton, W., Crabtree, C., Doxas, I., and Weigel, R. S., Geomagnetic transport in the solar wind-driven nightside magnetosphere-ionosphere system, Physics of Plasmas, 2002, doi | pdf.

  • Horton, W., R.S. Weigel, and J.C. Sprott, Chaos and the limits of predictability of the solar-wind driven magnetosphere-ionosphere system, Physics of Plasmas, 2001, doi | pdf.

  • Weigel, R.S., W. Horton, T. Tajima, and T. Detman, Forecasting auroral electrojet activity from solar wind input with neural networks, Geophysical Research Letters, 1999, doi | pdf.

  • Horton, W., J.P. Smith, R. Weigel, C. Crabtree, I. Doxas, B. Goode,and J. Cary, The solar-wind driven magnetosphere-ionosphere as a complex dynamical system, Physics of Plasmas, 1999, doi | pdf.

  • Horton, W., H. Vernon Wong, and R. Weigel, Interchange Trigger for Substorms in a Nonlinear Dynamics Model, Physics of Space Plasmas, 1998, pdf.

  • Weigel, R. and E. Atlee Jackson, Experimental implementation of migrations in multiple-attractor systems, International Journal of Bifurcations and Chaos, 1998, doi | pdf.

5 PhD Students

  • Curtis, Brian, GMU, CSI, PhD, 2014, Chair and Director, “Validation of Magnetospheric Magnetohydrodynamic Models”

  • Kercher, Andrew, GMU, CSI, PhD, 2014, Chair and Director, “Computational Methods for Ideal Magnetohydrodynamics”

  • McCracken, James, GMU, Physics, PhD, 2015, Chair and Director Outstanding Physics & Astronomy Dissertation Award, “Exploratory Causal Analysis in Bivariate Time Series Data”

  • Veibell, Victoir, GMU, CSI, PhD, 2016, Chair and Director, “Statistical Modeling of Earth’s plasmasphere”

  • Battams, Karl, GMU, CSI, PhD, 2018, Chair and Director, “Reduction and Synopses of Multi-Scale Time Series with Applications to Massive Solar Data”

  • Harvey, Christine, GMU, CSI, PhD, 2019, Director “Modeling, Simulation, and Analysis of the US Organ Transplant System”.

  • Winter, Eric, GMU, Physics, PhD, 2024, Chair and Director, “Applications of Neural Networks to Solve the Differential Equations of Magnetohydrodynamics”.

  • Stephens, Grant, GMU, Physics, PhD, 2024, Chair and Director “Revealing the Global Morphology of the Magnetosphere During Storms and Substorms using Data-Mining-Driven Empirical Magnetic Field Modeling”