Daniel N. Baker is Director of the Colorado Space Policy Center, University of Colorado Boulder. He is Distinguished Professor of Planetary and Space Physics at CU and is Professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, Professor of Physics, and Professor of Aerospace Engineering Sciences. He conducts research in space instrument design, space physics data analysis, and magnetospheric modeling. Dr. Baker obtained his PhD degree with James A. Van Allen. Following postdoctoral work at the California Institute of Technology with Edward C. Stone, he joined the physics research staff at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and became Leader of the Space Plasma Physics Group at LANL in 1981. From 1987 to 1994, he was the Chief of the Laboratory for Extraterrestrial Physics at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. From 1994 to present he has been at the University of Colorado.
Dr. Baker has published over 1000 papers in the refereed literature and has edited nine books on topics in space physics (h-index =131). He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He is a member of the International Academy of Astronautics and the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. He currently is an investigator on several NASA space missions including the Magnetospheric MultiScale (MMS) mission and the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission.
Dr. Baker was the 2010 winner of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) James A. Van Allen Space Environment Award and Medal. Dr. Baker was the 2015 Kavli Foundation Plenary Lectureship winner for the American Astronomical Society. He was the 2015 winner of the Vikram A. Sarabhai Professorship of the Indian Physical Research Laboratory. Dr. Baker was also the 2015 award recipient of the Shen Kuo Medal for Interdisciplinary Achievements, International Association of Geomagnetism and Aeronomy (IAGA). He received the Colorado Governor’s Award for High-Impact Research related to his Space Weather research (2016). Dr. Baker was awarded the American Geophysical Union’s highest honor the William Bowie Medal (2018) and the Hannes Alfven Medal of the European Geosciences Union (2019). In 2024, Dr. Baker received the Jeoujang Jaw Award and medal of COSPAR.