Rebecca Centeno is a Heliophysicist at the High Altitude Observatory division of NCAR. She received her PhD in solar Physics from the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias in 2006. She has been working at NCAR since 2007.
The Sun’s magnetic fields have the extraordinary ability to store energy and mass in tangled and often, unstable, configurations. When driven to a state of imbalance, these fields suddenly rearrange themselves into simpler, less energetic, configurations, releasing excess mass and energy in the process, and driving powerful space weather events. Dr. Centeno's scientific background is in the field of Solar spectropolarimetry for remote sensing of magnetic fields in the Sun's atmosphere. The physical properties of the Sun’s atmosphere –and particularly its magnetic fields– cannot be measured directly; rather, they can be inferred from the signatures they imprints on the intensity and polarization of the light that is emitted and absorbed in the solar atmosphere. Dr. Centeno’s research combines observations with theoretical polarized radiative transfer calculations to infer information about the physical state of the photosphere and chromosphere of the Sun.
During her PhD work, Dr. Centeno acquired observational training at a number of ground-based observatories around the world while leading or supporting many observing campaigns that used solar spectropolarimeters. She studied the theory of polarized radiative transfer and applied it (through spectral line inversion codes) to observations to infer the thermodynamic and magnetic properties in the solar atmosphere. Her dissertation focused on the properties of wave propagation through differently magnetized regions of the Sun (sunspots, place, network).
After her Ph.D., Dr. Centeno moved to Boulder for a 2-year postdoctoral fellowship with the Advanced Study Program of NCAR (2007 - 2009). During this time, her focus shifted towards space-based missions, which provide a wealth of consistently high quality data that are unaffected by the daily weather changes and nighttime interruptions. Upon her arrival at NCAR, she started working with data from Hinode (which had just launched a few months earlier), and published the first scientific paper from the mission.
At the end of her postdoctoral appointment, Dr. Centeno was hired as a Project Scientist and worked for the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) flying onboard NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). HMI continuously monitors the Sun taking images at different wavelengths and polarization states of the light. Rebecca’s contribution to the mission was to develop, optimize and test the spectral line inversion code that turns the measurements of intensity and polarization into magnetic field vectors and Doppler velocities. To this day, HMI delivers reliable, high-level data products that the scientific community uses to carry out cutting-edge research related to solar dynamics and magnetism.
Since 2012, Dr. Centeno leads the Community Spectropolarimetric Analysis Center. CSAC is an NCAR strategic initiative to develop, maintain and compile tools for the calibration, inversion, disambiguation and visualization of spectro-polarimetric observations. An important part of CSAC's mission is to train the next-generation heliophysicists in the interpretation of spectral line polarization for the inference of magnetic fields. Rebecca has organized two Solar Spectropolarimetry Schools (in 2018 and 2022), with an emphasis on educating the US domestic community while reinforcing and expanding the global network of young scientists working in this field. CSAC also provides calibrated data and high-level data products for the Hinode/SP instrument. We maintain the data pipeline, curate the data stream, and serve as a community liaison for this 18-year (so far) data archive. We strive to provide the best possible data, enabling the research of scientists around the world.
From 2021 to 2024, Rebecca was the Project Scientist for a NASA Heliophysics Small Explorer mission proposal called CMEx - the Chromospheric Magnetism Explorer. CMEx is a mission proposal to do spectropolarimetry in the near ultra-violet (259-281 nm), with the goal of characterizing the magnetic structure and evolution, from the photosphere to the base of the corona, to understand the magnetic nature of solar eruptions and the sources of the fast solar wind. In 2023, CMEx was down-selected for a Phase A concept study which is still underway.
