Professor Sandra Chapman has been awarded the Royal Astronomical Society James Dungey Lectureship for 2014.

The James Dungey Lecture is given annually by a distinguished and eloquent speaker on a suitable topic in geophysics (including solar physics, solar-terrestrial physics or planetary sciences). The James Dungey lecture normally covers topics concerning the science of the Sun, solar environment, planetary environments or solar-terrestrial science.

Professor Chapman of the University of Warwick has made outstanding contributions to our understanding of the solar wind and the magnetosphere. Among her many achievements, she has led landmark research on turbulence in the solar wind and nonlinear dynamics in the magnetotail.

Her research career is strongly interdisciplinary, spanning space and laboratory plasma physics, climate and neuroscience. She contributed to the data analysis and modelling of turbulence both in space and magnetically confined fusion plasmas, as well as focussing on wave-particle interactions, plasma acceleration and heating.

She has demonstrated a strong commitment to engaging with the general public, most recently through a project exploring how scientific ideas can be communicated through art. She is an outstanding speaker who can draw on the application of nonlinear and complex systems concepts to a wide variety of fields, even outside physics.