A native of Hungary, Tamas Gombosi was educated in theoretical physics at the Lóránd Eötvös University in Budapest. He did his postdoctoral research at the Space Research Institute (IKI) in Moscow, Russia, under the direction of space pioneer Konstantin Gringauz. Early in his career Tamas Gombosi was a member of the scientific staff of the Central Research Institute for Physics (KFKI) of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In 1985 he joined the faculty of the University of Michigan.
His scientific contributions span from planetary exploration to theoretical space plasma physics, to kinetic theory and generalized transport equations, to global simulations of space plasmas. His recent interests focus on the development of high-performance numerical codes and software frameworks for simulating space plasmas.
Gombosi participated in several exciting space missions, including the Venera 9 and 10 Venus orbiters, the VEGA mission to comet Halley, the Dynamics Explorer mission to explore the upper atmosphere and ionosphere, and the Pioneer Venus mission. Recent space missions include the Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn and its moon Titan, the Rosetta mission to comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the STEREO mission to explore solar storms, and the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission.
Tamas is married to Eszter Gombosi. They have two grown children: Judit and Zoltan. Both of them are alumni of the University of Michigan. Eszter and Tamas also have six grandchildren: Ben, Jake, Grace, Leah, Sam and Henry.
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In 2022 I published this manifesto to articulate my experience in managing large research projects. Click here to read the paper.
In 2013 Tamas Gombosi published a family history/memoir. The book is now available in color print or b/w print.
How did I become a space scientist? You can enjoy the story of Gombosi’s early career if you read in Hungarian.
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