Larisa Goncharenko (headshot)

Larisa Goncharenko

Assistant Director; Research Scientist; Geospace Group Lead Physics of ionosphere and thermosphere, with emphasis on ionosphere-thermosphere-mesosphere-stratosphere coupling
Office Phone 617-715-5622
Email lpg@mit.edu

I was born and lived in Ukraine for the first 30 years of my life. I received my undergraduate and graduate degrees at Kharkiv National Polytechnic University in Kharkiv, Ukraine, and worked there for 8 years before coming to the United States. I completed my PhD at the Rostock University in Germany. I started to work at Haystack Observatory as a post-doctoral associate in 1996, and have been working as a Research Scientist since 1997. In 2024, I was appointed Assistant Director and lead scientist of the atmospheric and geospace sciences research group.

My primary research interests are in the physics of the thermosphere and the ionosphere, stratosphere-mesosphere-thermosphere-ionosphere coupling, and space weather. I am especially interested in understanding how the state of the stratosphere and the mesosphere can influence the state of the thermosphere and the ionosphere. I am actively working on the analysis and interpretation of various ground-based and space-based observations, in particular incoherent scatter radars, GNSS receivers, and ionosondes. I am also interested in the development of empirical models that describe the ionosphere and the thermosphere, and often use numerical models to conduct my research.