1. David John Southwood was born on 30 June 1945 and is a British space scientist who holds the post of Senior Research Investigator at Imperial College London.
17 Facts About David Southwood
1. 2.
David Southwood built the magnetic field instrument for the Cassini Saturn orbiter.
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David Southwood obtained a PhD in physics from Imperial College London with a thesis on the theory and data analysis of low-frequency waves in the Earth's space environment.
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David Southwood conducted post-doctoral research at the University of California, Los Angeles, working on magnetometer data from the ATS-1 spacecraft.
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David Southwood then returned to Imperial College in 1971, where he produced a theory of field-line resonances in the Earth's magnetosphere which now underpins most work on geomagnetic pulsations.
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In 1982 David Southwood founded a space and atmospheric physics research group at Imperial; along with Andre Balogh he decided to focus the group's experimental work on space magnetometers.
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From 1994 to 1997 David Southwood was head of the Blackett Laboratory at Imperial College.
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In 1997 David Southwood retired as Head of Physics at Imperial College and became Head of Earth Observation Strategy at the European Space Agency.
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David Southwood's move to ESA had been intended as a short-term one, which would be over long before Cassini arrived at Saturn in 2004.
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David Southwood later described the Huygens landing as "the highest point of all" from his ESA career.
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David Southwood had led the team which developed the magnetometer on the main Cassini spacecraft.
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David Southwood suffered public criticism in the UK for not supporting Beagle 2 enough, and in France for supporting it at all.
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Collaborative missions initiated with the US included the James Webb Space Telescope, where David Southwood secured the flight of two predominantly European instruments and arranged a European launch on Ariane 5.
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In 2008, David Southwood became ESA's first Director of Science and Robotic Exploration.
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David Southwood drew up a new plan in which ExoMars would be split into two missions jointly undertaken with NASA, but the US withdrew support and the ESA missions continue with a new collaboration with Roscosmos.
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David Southwood retired from ESA during 2011 and returned to Imperial College.
17.
David Southwood began his two-year tenure as president in May 2012, and served until May 2014 when he was succeeded by Martin Barstow.