Professor Karen Aplin

Karen Aplin is Professor of Space Science and Technology at Bristol University, and Visiting Professor at the University of Reading’s Department of Meteorology. She previously worked at the University of Oxford’s Department of Physics and the Space Science and Technology Department at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. Her research programme seeks to understand and exploit electrical properties of atmospheres through novel instrumentation and experiments. She also works on space weather, aerosol charging, and recovery of historical electrostatic data. In 2021 she was the recipient of the Royal Astronomical Society’s James Dungey Lecture for her work on planetary atmospheric electricity. Her first degree was in Physics and Philosophy at Durham University, followed by a PhD in experimental atmospheric physics at the Department of Meteorology, University of Reading. She also has a classical performance diploma from Trinity College of Music.