Rate My Professor Colin Waters

Waters' research specializes in space physics, examining plasma interactions with planetary magnetospheres and ionospheres using computational modeling, magnetometer networks, satellite data from Iridium and AMPERE constellations, and SuperDARN radars. During his PhD, he developed the cross phase technique for remote sensing near-Earth plasma mass density via ULF waves, a method now employed internationally in Canada, the UK, South Africa, Japan, Europe, and the US. His investigations cover field line resonances, Birkeland currents, plasmasphere and plasmapause dynamics, auroral electrojets, Joule heating, and geomagnetic induced currents (GICs) affecting power grids, pipelines, and satellites. Collaborations include work with the Bureau of Meteorology's Space Weather Unit, Australian Energy Market Operator on grid resilience, and the Square Kilometre Array project on ionospheric scintillation mitigation. He co-authored the book Magnetoseismology: Ground-based Remote Sensing of Earth's Magnetosphere (Wiley, 2013) with F.W. Menk and has published over 170 peer-reviewed papers, garnering more than 4,700 citations. Recent publications include The Relationship Between the Magnetometer Data Derived GIC Index and Measured GIC in High Voltage Transformers in Australia (Space Weather, 2026) and An Extreme Auroral Electrojet Spike During 2023 April 24th Storm (AGU Advances, 2024). Awards encompass the Australian Institute of Physics Prize in Physics IV (1986), Canadian Network Post-Doctoral Fellowship (1993), and Faculty of Science and Information Technology Teaching Excellence Award (2011). He serves as Associate Editor for Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics and holds memberships in the American Geophysical Union and Australian Institute of Physics.