Dr. Chen Shi earned his bachelor’s degree in Space Science and Technology from Peking University in 2015, and his PhD degree in Geophysics and Space Physics from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2020. Following his doctoral studies, he continued at UCLA as a postdoctoral researcher and later as an assistant researcher, before joining Auburn University as an assistant professor in 2025.
Dr. Shi’s research centers on the physical processes that contribute to the heating of solar corona and acceleration of solar wind, with particular emphasis on magnetic reconnection and plasma turbulence. His work spans the development of theories of current sheet instabilities, numerical simulations of MHD turbulence, and analysis of satellite observations of solar wind turbulence and structures. In addition, Dr. Shi is also actively engaged in the development of high-performance MHD simulation codes.
Understanding how the supersonic solar wind is generated remains one of the central challenges in space physics. Solar wind, which is the plasma continuously streaming out from the solar corona, acts as the primary driver of geomagnetic activities and space weather phenomena. In this lecture, I will review the historical development and current understanding of this topic. Beginning with classic Parker’s solar wind model, I will show how the model’s polytropic generalization fails to reproduce realistic solar wind profiles, highlighting the need for additional energy sources. One such source is plasma turbulence, in which large-scale energy cascades toward smaller scales and dissipates, heating the plasma. I will introduce key concepts in magnetohydrodynamic turbulence and discuss recent advances in understanding the solar wind turbulence, with particular emphasis on results from the Parker Solar Probe, the closest spacecraft to the Sun to date. The lecture will conclude with a discussion of outstanding challenges and open questions surrounding the solar wind generation and the role of solar wind turbulence.