Portrait of Stanley Cowley

Seated portrait of Stanley Cowley, turned to the left, in his office at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester.

Professor Stanley Cowley, physicist, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2011. He is Emeritus Professor of Solar Planetary Physics at the University of Leicester, his research studies the processes that shape the outer plasma environments of the Earth and other magnetized planets. His areas of research interest include the interactions between the solar wind and planetary magnetic fields — particularly in the rapidly rotating magnetospheres of Jupiter and Saturn — as well as those between the magnetosphere and the ionosphere.

Stanley uses both space and ground-based observations to provide data for his research. He has been involved in a number of international space missions, including the European Space Agency’s Cluster II mission and both NASA’s Cassini and Juno missions.

He has received many awards in recognition of his work, including the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society and the Julius Bartels Medal of the European Geophysical Union, both in 2006. In addition to being a Fellow of the Royal Society, Stanley was elected as a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 1995.