Sami Khan Solanki is director of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, director of the Sun-Heliosphere Department of MPS, a scientific member of the Max Planck Society, and a Chair of the International Max Planck Research School on Physical Processes in the Solar System and Beyond at the Universities of Braunschweig and Göttingen. Solanki is also an Honorary Professor at the Institute of Astronomy at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, and Institute for Geophysics and Extraterrestrial Physics at the Braunschweig University of Technology in Germany. In addition, he is a Distinguished Professor at the Kyung Hee University in Korea. He is the editor-in-chief of the Living Reviews in Solar Physics, an exclusively web-based, peer-reviewed journal, publishing reviews of research in all areas of solar and heliospheric physics. Living Reviews in Solar Physics was recently rated with an impact factor of 17.636 taking the third place in the "Astronomy & Astrophysics" category. Solanki's main topics of research are:
Solar and heliospheric physics, in particular solar magnetism and Sun-Earth relations
Stellar astrophysics, mainly stellar activity and magnetism
He has also held these positions: Vice-Chairman and member of the Senate Committee of the German Aerospace Centre ; Member Appointment Committee and Committee of Three of the DLR; Member Extraterrestrial Program Committee of the DLR; Science Advisory Committee of the High Altitude Observatory, Boulder/USA; Science Advisory Board at the Istituto Ricerche Solari, Locarno/Switzerland; and has contributed to the following space/balloon projects:
In 2011, Solanki delivered a lecture, “Is the Sun to Blame for Global Warming?,” at the first Starmus Festival in the Canary Islands. His talk was subsequently published in the book Starmus: 50 Years of Man in Space.
Controversy
Solanki's research has been quoted as being part of the Global warming controversy, for instance in an article in the Telegraph.co.uk in 2004 as taking a sceptical position: But the same research has been quoted as being evidence for global warming in a news release from the Max Planck Society though he is quoted as calling for further investigation, saying:
