Women in radio science: Introduction by the associate editor

Abstract

I met Nicole for the first time at a Spacecraft Charging Conference at ESTEC, Noordwijk, Netherlands, some 20 years ago. There at the ESTEC lunchroom, I already noticed a very engaged and colorful scientist. We later have been on the same ISSI (International Space Science Institute, Bern, Switzerland) Team on dust-plasma interactions. In March 2013, Nicole visited a workshop at the Swedish Institute of Space Physics in Kiruna, 120 km north of the polar circle, for five days. To her disappointment, the magnetometer lines were very straight, indicating no geomagnetic activity. However, late on the last night, a faint green auroral arc started to drift from the northern sky and intensify. We saw this from a car and had to stop. I remember Nicole standing there with the aurora as background in her very elegant long stocking cap in the −20° C cold to follow all the substorm phases forever. Fortunately, the rest of us could stay indoors, but felt worried about her. Afterwards, she convinced us that she had not felt any cold in her interaction with the beautiful Northern Lights.