Faculty Directory

Sophia Sánchez-Maes is a physicist whose work bridges observational, computational, and instrumental approaches to study plasma processes in extreme astrophysical environments. She develops high-cadence soft X-ray instrumentation for solar flare imaging, runs 3D general relativistic particle-in-cell (GRPIC) simulations of black hole accretion and flares, and analyzes magnetic reconnection as a driver of high-energy variability. Sophia is particularly interested in how theory, observation, and hardware can be integrated to understand energetic transients in the solar and galactic center environments.