Ryan French

Ryan French’s research uses telescopes on the ground and in space to investigate explosive events on the Sun called solar flares. French completed his Ph.D. in Solar Physics at the UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory. While completing his degree, he was awarded the prestigious Newkirk Fellowship, funding his multiple productive science visits to the NCAR High Altitude Observatory in Boulder, Colorado. As a Brinson Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Solar Observatory, French is diving deeper into this field using the next-generation facilities of the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) and the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter, both of which began science operations in early 2022. In addition to his scientific work, French is a veteran science communicator, with a decade of experience presenting science and astronomy to a diverse range of audiences, most recently as an Astronomy Presenter at the Royal Observatory Greenwich. He has also educated wider audiences through interviews on BBC World News and BBC Radio 2.