Rate My Professor Paul Cally

Paul Cally serves as Professor of Solar Physics in the School of Mathematics, Faculty of Science at Monash University. He obtained his PhD in Applied Mathematics from Monash University in 1980. Following postdoctoral research positions in the United Kingdom prior to 1984, he returned to Monash as a lecturer in 1984 and has since progressed to his current professorial appointment. Cally's research specializations encompass magnetohydrodynamic waves and instabilities, MHD mode mixing and resonant absorption, solar physics, the solar tachocline, helioseismology, MHD mode conversion, analytic and numerical solution techniques, applied mathematics applications to solar and astrophysical modelling, solar activity, and solar and stellar dynamos.

Cally holds the position of President of the International Astronomical Union Commission E2 on Solar Activity. He has produced 167 research outputs, including key publications such as 'Efficiency of Magnetohydrodynamic Wave Generation in Weakly Ionized Atmospheres' (The Astrophysical Journal, 2023), 'Wave Conversion, Decay, and Heating in a Partially Ionized Two-fluid Magneto-atmosphere' with M. M. Gómez-Míguez (The Astrophysical Journal, 2023), 'Alfvén Wave Conversion and Reflection in the Solar Chromosphere and Transition Region' (Physics, 2022), 'MHD waves in homogeneous and continuously stratified atmospheres' with T. J. Bogdan (in Magnetohydrodynamic Processes in Solar Plasmas, Elsevier, 2024), 'Fast-to-Alfvén Mode Conversion and Ambipolar Heating in Structured Media. I. Simplified Cold Plasma Model' with Elena Khomenko (The Astrophysical Journal, 2019), 'Fast-to-Alfvén Mode Conversion and Ambipolar Heating in Structured Media. II. Numerical Simulation' with Elena Khomenko (The Astrophysical Journal, 2019), 'Hall-coupling of Slow and Alfvén Waves at Low Frequencies in the Lower Solar Atmosphere' with Abbas Raboonik (Solar Physics, 2019), and 'Smoothing of MHD Shocks in Mode Conversion' with Jamon D. Pennicott (The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 2019). His scholarship has accumulated over 5,474 citations on Google Scholar, demonstrating considerable influence in solar physics and MHD wave theory. Cally contributes to teaching, including the unit MTH5343 on Magnetohydrodynamics and visualisation of scientific data.