User:Alamo NM/Valentín Martínez Pillet



Valentín Martínez Pillet is the Director of the National Solar Observatory, whose mission is to advance the knowledge of the Sun as the national, federally funded center in USA for ground based research into the Sun on behalf of the National Science Foundation. The National Solar Observatory is operated on behalf of the National Science Foundation by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy to provide for the operation of cutting edge facilities and advanced solar physics instrumentation. During his tenure at the National Solar Observatory, his scientific leadership includes the transfer and consolidation of the National Solar Observatory HQ from Sacramento Peak, NM and Kitt Peak, Arizona, into a unified HQ on the campus of the University of Colorado, Boulder, and the construction of the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) on Haleakalā, Hawaii.

Prior to his leadership of the National Observatory, Dr Martínez Pillet was a Project Coordinator at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, and a Senior scientist at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias. During that time he was a Principal Investigator of the Solar Orbiter Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager and the Imaging Magnetograph Experiment (IMaX). He has been president of the a Division of the International Astronomical Union and a member of the editorial board for the Solar Physics journal. He has also performed TED talks on the international stage.

His prime research breakthroughs are in spectropolarimetric observations of solar features, solar surface and atmospheric dynamics, and the structure of the solar chromospheric network. He received his PhD at the University of La Laguna in 1992, and his Bachelor of Science from University of Valencia, in 1985. He has since published over 270 papers, with over 7000 citations, and published two books. He is a member of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE), and the Sociedad Española de Astronomía (SEA). He is a consultant and advisor to national and international science bodies, including service on the External Scientific Advisory Board of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia, and prior to that as advisor to the Spanish Science Minister as a Member of the Spanish Comisión Nacional de Astronomía.