CEDAR email: In memory of Stan Sazykin

[Astrid Maute]

Stan Sazykin died suddenly and unexpectedly on May 3 at the age of 49. The
cause of his death has not yet been determined.

Stan earned his B.S. and M. S. degrees from Moscow Institute of Physics and
Technology. He came to the United States as an exchange student in the
USSR-USA (later Russia-USA) Bush Gorbachev Exchange Program in 1993.  He
received his B. S. and Ph.D. degrees from Utah State University where he
worked under the direction of Bela Fejer initially on equatorial and low
latitude thermospheric winds. His Ph.D. thesis research focused on
theoretical studies of penetration of magnetospheric electric fields to the
ionosphere with guidance from Richard Wolf (his “magnetospheric advisor”)
and Robert Spiro. In 2000, Stan went to Rice University as a postdoc,
rising through the ranks to Associate Research Professor. He was a
distinguished computational physicist and highly-respected member of the
space plasma physics community. He was also one of the smartest people any
of us have ever encountered, with an extraordinarily rigorous and
penetrating mind.

Early in his career, Stan reprogrammed the Rice Convection Model (RCM) of
the Earth's inner magnetosphere, and he then devoted much effort to
improving it, year by year. The RCM is used by several research groups
around the country. Stan was always the person that people went to with
questions about that code.

Much of Stan's research dealt with electric fields in the middle- and
low-latitude ionosphere. In extreme circumstances, magnetospheric electric
fields can penetrate to the equator and alter significantly the structure
of the ionosphere. In less extreme conditions, localized ionospheric drifts
occur just equatorward of the auroral zone, where they are called by
several names, including SubAuroral Polarization Streams (SAPS). Much of
Stan's work on these topics involved coupled ionosphere-magnetosphere
models, including one done in collaboration with Naomi Maruyama and one
done with Joe Huba.

Stan was an active member of the scientific community, convening sessions
at meetings and focus groups. He was a past member of the Steering
Committee of the Geospace

Environment Modeling Program (GEM) and the Rice University Faculty Senate,
where he played an important role in the development of Rice’s policies for
research and teaching professors. He was also very active in Westbury youth
soccer.

Stan will be sorely missed by his wife Ying and his three young sons
Andrew, Logan, and Victor, as well as his colleagues at Rice and many
members of the magnetospheric and ionospheric scientific communities.

Since the family was dependent on Stan’s income, Rice's Physics and
Astronomy  Department has established a gofundme account:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-stan-sazykins-family?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=m_pd%20share-sheet&fbclid=IwAR3xkCnLZqHeVP34_uejws9o5MAcGG6kEGjFSJlXRaSsvPDwMcJ-b9CTUoI


Bela Fejer, Dick Wolf, Frank Toffoletto, Tom Hill, Bob Spiro, Jian Yang
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