LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — California State Parks’ Division of Boating and Waterways is inviting new and experienced boating enthusiasts to celebrate National Safe Boating Week from May 18 to 24.

This week is a time to emphasize the importance of responsible boating practices and water safety awareness as boaters head out to California’s waterways during Memorial Day weekend.

As boaters across the country gear up for the summer season of adventure, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Division of Boating and Waterways, or DBW, are sharing the top seven tips for safe and enjoyable boating experiences.

“National Safe Boating Week serves as a reminder of the simple yet critical steps boaters can take to protect themselves, their family and others while enjoying our beautiful waterways,” said DBW’s Deputy Director Ramona Fernandez. “By following these safety tips, boaters can ensure a safe and enjoyable experience on the water for all."

Here are the essential tips when heading out on the water:

Wear a life jacket: Life jackets save lives. Make sure you and all passengers have a properly fitted U.S. Coast Guard-approved life jacket onboard and always wear it while on the water. Remember, life jackets are the most effective means of preventing drowning in the event of an emergency. Life jackets are required to be worn for those under 13 years old while on a moving vessel.

Boat sober: Alcohol and boating do not mix. Operating a boat under the influence of alcohol or drugs is not only illegal but also significantly impairs judgment and reaction times. Alcohol is dangerous for passengers too. Intoxication can cause slips, falling overboard, and other dangerous accidents.

Take a safe boating course and get your California Boater Card: Familiarize yourself with local boating laws, regulations, and navigation rules before heading out. Understanding right-of-way, speed limits, and navigational aids will help prevent accidents and ensure smooth sailing. Boaters 60 years and younger are required to carry a California Boater Card while operating a motorized vessel on California waterways. More information is available at https://californiaboatercard.com/.

Have the proper safety equipment: Ensure you have all the required equipment onboard and in good working condition for a safe and fun day on the water. Review the ABCs of California Boating for more details.

Stay weather aware: Check the weather forecast and be prepared for changing conditions. Sudden storms or rough waters can pose significant dangers. Always have a reliable means of communication onboard to receive weather updates.

File a float plan: Let someone know your boating plans before you depart. File a float plan with a friend or family member detailing your itinerary, expected return time, and contact information. In the event of an emergency, this information can be crucial for rescuers.

Implement clean and green practices: Get your 2024 California Boater Kit. Always carry oil absorbents on board and in your bilge to prevent oily discharges. To prevent fuel spills, use fuel bibs. Dispose of them as hazardous waste at your County Household Hazardous Waste Collection Center. Never throw garbage into waterways. Take advantage of shore-side facilities to recycle plastic, glass, metal, and paper. Used fishing line can be deposited at fishing-line recycling stations.

During National Safe Boating Week and throughout the boating season, the Division of Boating and Waterways encourages boaters to prioritize safety, stay informed, and always be prepared. Whether you're sailing, cruising, fishing, or paddling, safe and environmentally responsible boating practices benefit everyone on the water.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Decades after her remains were found in a remote part of Lake County, a young woman who authorities believe was the victim of murder has been given back her name.

The Jane Doe, discovered along Highway 175 in 1979, has been identified as Wanda Lee Brewer from Carson, California, said Lauren Berlinn, spokesperson for the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.

With the new information about the victim's identity, detectives are hoping to find new leads so they can finally solve the case, Berlinn said.

The effort to identify Brewer and discover what happened to her recently took on new life thanks to developments in DNA testing.

That, along with persistent detective work, helped put a name to the bones found 45 years ago in a case that quickly went cold due to lack of leads and information.

“It was almost a two-year project,” said Sgt. Gary Frace, who leads the sheriff’s coroner division.

“I couldn’t have done it without the help of everybody in the department,” said Frace, who said detectives and coroners’ division staff were crucial to the work. “It was a huge group effort.”

The work that Frace and department detectives did to follow up on the leads from Othram, a company specializing in DNA analysis, resulted in multiple interviews and additional DNA testing of living relatives, and in April it was determined that Jane Doe was Brewer. She had been born in Arkansas but later made her home in California.

The California Department of Justice’s missing persons database lists nine missing men and women from Lake County, the oldest case going back to 1980 and the most recent to December 2023. Brewer, however, wasn’t among them.

The number of active missing person cases averages around 20,000 in California, the state Department of Justice reported.

There are others, however, who are never reported missing. That was the situation in Brewer’s case.

A decades-old case

The story of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office’s involvement in the case stretches back to Sept. 18, 1979.

It was on that date that a couple stumbled upon skeletal remains off of Highway 175 between the Lake and Mendocino county lines, Berlinn said.

Berlinn said Deputy Mike Powers responded to the area to begin the homicide investigation.

“Yeah, I remember the case,” Powers, a 55-year veteran of the sheriff’s office, told Lake County News in a Thursday interview. “We knew it was a homicide.”

He began working for the agency on May 1, 1969, retired in December of 1998 and the following year he was asked to come back to work on a part-time basis.

“And I’ve worked part-time for them ever since,” said Powers, who is a part-time deputy sheriff, working on background investigations, as well as a board member of the Sheriff’s Activity League.

Powers had been with the sheriff’s office just over 10 years when he got the call in September of 1979 about the remains.

He recalled that the individuals who found Brewer’s remains were from Mendocino County and found the bones in a very remote area off Highway 175 toward the top of the Hopland Grade, near what is today a large turnout.

The Lake County Sheriff’s Office said a man and woman were looking for bottles and cans in a brushy area about 20 feet from the roadway when they found the body, according to a newspaper clipping from the time.

Powers said the remains were skeletal, with no signs of clothing or other physical evidence.

“She’d been there a long time,” he said of Brewer. “Her remains were scattered around.”

Powers said the sheriff’s office set about trying to identify the victim, and consulted with the San Francisco Coroner’s Office. They worked with a pathologist to try to get as much information as they could about the victim.

“They gave us some basic information,” he said, explaining that the pathologist could tell them the remains belonged to a female and a possible nationality. But based on the technology of the time, the forensic examination offered little other information that was conclusive.

Based on case information, the victim was estimated to be between 25 and 35 years old at her time of death, the range of which was between 1976 and 1979. She also was believed to be between 5’1’’ and 5’4” in height.

Deputies used what information they could get to try to find any missing persons who might have matched. However, “We weren’t successful at all,” Powers said.

“We couldn't identify the victim, we didn’t know anything about the victim,” he said.

There was also the reach of communications technology available to law enforcement in the late 1970s. Powers said they could put out a teletype on a missing person, but it didn’t have the near-global coverage that such alerts and messages do now. In this case, it may have gone no farther than the Bay Area.

“The technology back then was pretty limited on what we could do,” he said, noting it was further complicated because they had no idea where the victim was from.

“The case itself went cold fairly soon after the fact,” Powers said.

New technology, new efforts

Berlinn said that, throughout the years, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office followed up with the California Department of Justice to use emerging technology to identify the woman known at that time as the 1979 Jane Doe.

Officials said details of the case were entered into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System in June 2019.

It was in March of last year that a California Department of Justice representative suggested that Frace contact a private DNA lab, Othram, to find out if their state-of-the-art procedures could help identify Jane Doe.

Frace told Lake County News that when he moved into the coroner’s unit, he began working on the case. Ilona Porter, the longtime evidence and property supervisor, was trying to get the case started again before she retired.

Late last year, Frace and other sheriff’s office detectives also contacted Powers to ask him about the case. They had to pull the original one-page report from microfilm, and it was difficult to read.

Power said he went over his old report again and concluded that there wasn’t much else he could tell them outside of what he had originally reported.

As part of that work, Frace said he contacted the California Department of Justice, but the agency responded to say that it didn’t have the ability to do ancestral DNA, and that the DNA sample they did have wasn’t adequate.

However, they suggested he contact Othram, which could do the testing work through a grant.

Othram is based in The Woodlands, north of Houston, Texas, and has worked on thousands of cases like Lake County’s. Othram's casework costs for the case were provided by the Roads to Justice program.

Frace said the DOJ even sent the case and materials over to Othram for the sheriff’s office.

A week later, Frace said he started getting emails from Othram. Later, they sent him a DNA profile and a detailed family tree profile for the decedent which included names and contact information, and even employers.

In a statement to Lake County News, the company said that its Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing “represents a significant leap forward in forensic DNA analysis compared to traditional methods like STR or CODIS testing. Unlike these conventional techniques, which typically analyze around 20 genetic markers, our technology collects hundreds of thousands of markers from DNA evidence. This comprehensive approach provides a much more detailed genetic profile, enhancing the accuracy and reliability of forensic identifications.”

The company said it also has the ability to work with evidence that may not be usable by traditional forensic DNA methods. “This means that even in cases where conventional techniques have failed to yield results due to degraded or limited DNA samples, Othram's technology can still extract valuable genetic information.”

As a result, “These cases generally resolve in weeks to months, instead of years to decades (or never),” the company said.

Othram said its scientists successfully developed a DNA extract from the forensic evidence and used its Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing to build a comprehensive DNA profile for the then-unknown woman. Once the profile was successfully built, Othram said its in-house forensic genetic genealogy team produced new investigative leads that were provided to the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.

Thanks to those efforts, in January, a potential match for a living relative of Jane Doe was identified, a woman in the Midwest. Frace called her, but she didn’t have much information, outside of family stories she had heard growing up.

Frace called Othram which rechecked its information. Then, an important break: In March, a second match was found, and Othram sent another familial contact, this time a woman who lives in Texas.

“The cool thing that Othram does, and I just think that it’s phenomenal, they give you names, dates of birth, addresses, most recent phone numbers,” said Frace, explaining that they also had searched newspapers and found an obituary for the decedent’s mother.

He said they even sent him a list of questions for the relative to assist in the process.

Frace called the Texas relative and explained the situation. The woman said her relative had simply disappeared but that she had a daughter. With the information she shared, a coroner technician was able to look up the daughter on Facebook while Frace was still on the phone with the relative from Texas.

They then sent her a photo of Brewer, who the woman from Texas identified as her cousin.

She explained that her father had raised Brewer’s daughter. A week after her child was born, Brewer left her daughter, who stayed with her family members in Texas until she was around age 10 to 12. That’s when Brewer showed up and took her to Southern California.

The woman’s father who raised Brewer’s daughter and who also spoke with Frace, said he believed Brewer had been involved with prostitution and working the docks in Southern California.

“They never even filed a missing person’s report back then,” said Frace, explaining that they thought she had run off with someone.

Nobody could remember Brewer’s birthday, which Frace said they concluded was around 1935.

Frace was able to contact Brewer’s daughter through her work, and when he told her the story that he had pieced together, she started crying because she had wondered her whole life where her mother had gone.

She said she had lived with her mother for a few years before her disappearance. The last thing she remembered her mom saying was that she was going down the hall to speak to a guy, a trucker.

After her mother disappeared, Brewer’s daughter didn’t return to her family in Texas. Instead, Frace said she was placed in the foster care system.

Brewer’s daughter shared the only photo she had of her mother, in a family group, which is the image of her shown in this article.

There is still much that isn’t known about the case, such as who killed Brewer.

“How Wanda got up to Lake County, I have no idea,” said Frace.

He said they believe Brewer’s body had been dumped sometime in 1977 to 1978, and that her remains “were there for awhile” before their discovery.

Reconnecting family

Frace said he received Brewers’ remains back from Othram and they were then taken to Chapel of the Lakes Mortuary in Lakeport, where they were cremated. They are being sent to her daughter.

“She will be able to put her mom to rest now,” Frace said.

He said he’s never done a case this in-depth. “Putting it all together like a story is kind of cool.”

Frace said he is now working on another case involving a Clearlake murder from 2010.

A longtime sheriff’s deputy, Frace said he loves his job with the coroner’s office, because he gets to make a difference. “I feel like, for the first time in a long time, that I get to help people.”

In the case of Brewer’s family, he was able to reconnect her daughter and cousin who had been raised together but separated for decades. They live four hours apart.

Powers is pleased to see a case he worked on decades ago come to at least a partial conclusion with her identification.

He’s also amazed by the changes in technology and what it now allows law enforcement to do with cases like Brewer’s.

Powers said he’s excited that they can reunite Brewer with her family. While that will offer them some closure, it doesn’t address her murder.

“It would be nice to have a suspect in the case,” he said, but added, “There’s a good chance the suspect isn’t even alive at this point.”

Today, advances in DNA technology and greater ability to communicate to other agencies and communities have given law enforcement important tools.

During his time as a deputy, “It was shoe leather that we worked off of,” Powers said, explaining that their main tools were knocking on doors and meeting people.

Along with technology, Power said detectives still use that shoe leather approach today. In Brewer’s case, that was true as well, with Frace and the agency’s detectives meeting and interviewing people to help put Brewer’s story together.

Berlinn said this investigation is ongoing, and while it’s an old cold case, detectives still hope to finally solve it.

Anyone with information about the Brewer homicide is asked to come forward. Please reach out to Sgt. Jeffrey Mora at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it./.

Frace said he wants Brewer’s daughter and family to finally get some closure and rest.

“I want Wanda to go where she needs to go with her name. That kind of stuff is important to me,” he said.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Lake County Animal Care and Control has many dogs in need of news homes waiting in its shelter this week.

Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of Alaskan husky, Anatolian shepherd, Australian terrier, Cane Corso, Chesapeake Bay retriever, Chihuahua, German shepherd, hound, Labrador Retriever, pit bull terrier, Rottweiler and terrier.

Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.

Those dogs and the others shown on this page at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption.

Call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278 or visit the shelter online for information on visiting or adopting.

The shelter is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

 

Updated data released from the California Highway Patrol shows more people are applying to join the nation’s largest public-facing state law enforcement agency.

In the last four months, the CHP has received 7,615 applications, an increase from 2023 and 2022 which saw 5,803 applications and 3,732, respectively, in the same period.

“The officers of the California Highway Patrol are the best of the best, committing daily to public service and public safety,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom. “I encourage more Californians to answer the call to serve their neighborhoods and continue helping build community-oriented bridges across California.”

“Recruitment for the CHP is more than just filling vacant positions; it’s about finding individuals who embody our professional values and are passionate about a career dedicated to serving the public,” said CHP Commissioner Sean Duryee. “The surge in interest reflects not only a desire to serve, but also a recognition of the noble calling of policing.”

You can be one of the new CHP officers ready to make a difference. Apply and register for an upcoming hiring seminar here.

Marking progress to fulfill the administration’s multi-year campaign to recruit 1,000 new CHP officers from the state’s diverse communities, more than 300 cadets have been sworn in as officers this year.

To accommodate the interest, the CHP is holding multiple Academy classes simultaneously for the first time in the department’s history, with three more classes completing training this year.

The next CHP Academy graduation is scheduled for July 12.

The CHP is the largest public-facing state law enforcement agency in the United States with over 6,500 sworn officers assigned across California.

Following the launch of the CHP 1000 recruitment campaign and other recent recruitment efforts and hiring investments — including a new recruitment web series “Cadets” — CHP reports that there have been an average of about 1,900 applicants a month since the start of the year.

California has invested expanded resources and personnel since 2019 to fight crime, help local governments hire more police, and improve public safety.

In 2023, as part of California’s Real Public Safety Plan, the Governor announced the largest-ever investment to combat organized retail crime in state history, an annual 310% increase in proactive operations targeting organized retail crime, and special operations across the state to fight crime and improve public safety.

If you were in California this past week, you probably spent more time than usual gazing at the stars.

Why? Because the Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, made a surprise trip down to the continental United States, lighting up skies as far south as Joshua Tree and giving Californians a rare look at a celestial show that usually requires getting on a plane.

Those that missed it (or those who caught it and loved it) may wonder if this was this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, or if it could happen here again. To find out, we asked three experts at the UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory, Chris Chaston, Harald Frey and Yan Li. Chaston and Frey are research physicists and Li is an associate research physicist at the lab.

Q: First things first — what are the Northern Lights? Why do we call them that? Where are they usually seen?

Chris Chaston (CC): The Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, are emissions of light from atoms and molecules in the upper atmosphere stimulated by collisions with energetic electrons and ions streaming downward from near-Earth space. They are usually seen at high latitudes — above 60 degrees and during the night when the light becomes visible. They occur in an oval roughly centered around the poles. In the Southern Hemisphere they are referred to as the Aurora Australis.

Harald Frey (HF): There is a widespread misconception that aurora on Earth is generated by energetic particles coming directly from the sun. The real processes are more complicated. The sun continuously emits the solar wind, as a stream of energetic electrons and protons that carries electric and magnetic fields with it. The interaction of these fields with the Earth’s magnetic field distorts it and transfers energy into it. Our magnetic field cannot accumulate endless amounts of energy and has to release this excess energy. This energy release generates energetic electrons in the so-called auroral acceleration region about 6000 kilometers above ground. When these energetic electrons collide with the atoms and molecules of the upper atmosphere at about 100-200 km altitude, these atoms and molecules emit light that we consider as aurora. Very often we refer to is as just aurora or polar lights that occur in the north and south.

Q: Why do you think people are fascinated by the Northern Lights?

HF: You have to consider the aspect of surprise. You likely look up into the sky hundreds of times and nothing is happening, except for the occasional meteor. But when suddenly the whole sky lights up, changes color, and forms change and dance around, you are admiring what nature is capable of doing.

CC: Because it’s one of those things that ‘blows you away’ when you see it in full swing. It’s not just the light itself, but more how it moves or ‘dances’ — like a kaleidoscope in the sky, truly wonderful.

Q: Did you get a chance to see the lights over California this past weekend?

CC: I missed it on Friday night but I did try after sunset on Saturday from a high point in the Bay area. It was perhaps just a faint glow above the horizon to the North. I read of people driving up to Shasta on Friday who saw a good show late in the evening.

Q: Why were they visible in California over the past weekend, and as far south and east as Florida? Is that normal — or worrisome?

CC: There was a major geomagnetic storm over the weekend due to the shedding of matter and magnetic field from the Sun in the form of a series of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that collided with Earth, or more specifically Earth’s magnetic field. Under these circumstances Earth’s magnetic field gets compressed and the low latitude edge where those energetic particles stream downward to collide with the atmosphere moves southward in the Northern Hemisphere. This southward shift is related to the strength of the storm. The weekend’s storm was a particularly strong event such that the aurora could be seen from Northern California and the southern states. It’s not something to be especially worried about, but it can impact the power grid due to currents induced in electrical transmissions lines and radio communications may be disrupted due to variations in the upper atmosphere or more correctly the ionosphere.

HF: The impact of such geomagnetic storms on the ground is generally rather limited, but similar events in the past have caused damage to electric power lines and transformers. More worrisome is the potential damage to satellites in orbit around the Earth. The energetic electrons can damage the electronic components of satellites and make them unusable. One way to limit damage to satellites is to turn them off temporarily, which was actually done with the three THEMIS satellites around Earth that are managed by our UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory. Many other satellite operators must have taken similar precautions.

Q: Some reports suggest that this may happen in the continental U.S. more frequently in the next few years. Do you agree with that? Why is that?

Yan Li (YL): Solar flares and CMEs as energetic solar activity are more frequent during the maximum of the solar cycle. These violent solar activity produce intense solar energetic electrons and ions. The Sun is on the rising phase of the solar cycle and approaching its activity maximum soon. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect more frequent aurora sightings in the next few years.

CC: Solar cycle prediction is an evolving art and sometimes things don’t work out as expected, but around 11 years is the average and we are close to the peak now, I think. Here’s a link to the sunspot number charts that define where we are in the solar cycle: Solar Cycle Progression | NOAA / NWS Space Weather Prediction Center.

On a short-term basis ‘hotspots’ on the Sun can stick around for a while, so with an average solar rotation period of 4 weeks there could be some increased auroral action in a little under a month from now.

Q: Why do the Northern Lights appear in different colors here than the usual green we see in photos from Alaska?

CC: The color of light that is seen is dependent on the atmospheric composition and the energy and type of colliding particle that stimulates the light emitted. The classic green aurora is due to energized electrons colliding with atomic oxygen and is the most common auroral emission reported. At lower latitudes, such as here in California, the downward streaming electrons which stimulate the light seen from the ground have a different distribution in energy than those observed at high latitudes and the aurora is only observed from the side looking northward, rather than from below. These factors lead to us observing different colors and mixtures of colors.

Q: Can they be seen by the naked eye? Why are iPhones so much better at capturing them?

CC: Certainly, the aurora is observed by the naked eye. Cameras with long exposure times and sensitive light sensors (CCD and CMOS) can capture faint aurora but the best way to view the Northern Lights for the amateur observer is with the naked eye.

HF: The human eye is most sensitive to green light, less to red, and even less to blue. The optical detectors of iPhones try to mimic the human eye sensitivity as best as possible but they are still more sensitive to red. Therefore a mix of blue/green/red will appear slightly different to the naked eye and on a picture taken by the phone.

Q: Is there any way to know when they will be visible near us? (Friends of mine now send me solar forecasts, but I have no idea how to interpret them!)

CC: Yes. I can suggest NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center’ at Homepage | NOAA / NWS Space Weather Prediction Center that provides forecasts every day.

YL: The accuracy of Solar forecasts for flares and CMEs are improving, but it’s still very difficult. Even when a forecast of flare or CME is successful, the direction of the energetic electrons produced needs to be right to reach the earth. So, a direct forecast of auroral sightings is not simple. But when there are super strong flares (like X-class flares) and super fast (>1000km/s) CMEs, energetic electrons produced can span a large angle, sometimes almost in all directions around the Sun, in which cases we might be in luck for auroral activity while we might also be in 'luck' for blackouts and loss of satellite communications, using cell phones etc.

Q: If you really want to see the Northern Lights, should you wait for them to come to California, or where might you go?

CC: You might be waiting a long time to see it here again in California and even then, you will likely not see it at its best. If you want to see the aurora in all its glory, I would suggest booking into a hotel near Fairbanks, Alaska for a couple of weeks during mid-winter.

HF: Other good places are northern Norway, Sweden, and Finland and central Canada. You need a clear sky and as little moonlight as possible. There is aurora over Iceland, but this region is known for many cloudy days and coastal fog. The weather is more stable in inland regions, like Fairbanks, Alaska.

Q: What if you want to go somewhere warmer?

CC: You can also see aurora in the Southern Hemisphere. This past weekend I heard it was good from Hobart, Tasmania, and was supposed to be visible all the way up to Coffs Harbour in New South Wales, Australia, although I have not searched for images.

Q: When should I plan this kind of trip, in terms of timing around solar cycles?

CC: Aurora is observed throughout the solar cycle at high latitudes. I spent several weeks in Fairbanks in the winters of 1996 and 1997, i.e., around solar minimum, and saw some fantastic displays. So I would not be too concerned with the timing — just make sure there is plenty of darkness and as Harald pointed out it’s better if the moon is out of view.

HF: Last week you would not have seen the bright aurora from Fairbanks because the aurora was much too far south. May through August are bad times for aurora viewing from Alaska because the sun does not completely set in the far northern regions and the background light would have made it difficult (impossible?) to see aurora, even if it were there. If you want to have it warm while watching the Northern Lights, you have to stay in California and wait for the rare ~10-year event.

Q: When you look for the Northern Lights, what direction should you be looking in?

CC: This depends on where you are, but in the continental U.S. just looking north is a good start.

Chris Chaston has been studying the physics of auroral particle acceleration since arriving at UC Berkeley in 1996. This work has involved NASA’s FAST, POLAR, THEMIS and Van Allen Probes missions, the European Space Agency’s Cluster mission and Japan’s Reimei satellite as well as sounding rockets. His work on this topic has focused on the physics of Alfvén waves and how these waves can drive auroral arc formation through the acceleration of ions and electrons.

Harald Frey received his education in Germany and joined the Space Sciences Laboratory at UC Berkeley in 1997. He has been working on the detection and analysis of optical phenomena in near-Earth space using cameras on satellites and on the ground. He was the instrument scientist for the Far Ultraviolet Imager on the NASA IMAGE mission that observed aurora, the U.S. project scientist for the Imager for Sprites and Upper Atmospheric Lightning (ISUAL), and instrument scientist for the Far Ultraviolet Imager on the NASA Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON). He is now retired.

Yan Li has been a research physicist at the UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory since 1999 and is an expert on solar coronal mass ejections that trigger aurora events. Before arriving at UC Berkeley more than 20 years ago, her work carried her from the Institute of Space Physics at the Space Academy in Beijing, China, the University of Sydney in Australia and Kyushu University in Japan.

Robyn Schelenz writes for the University of California newsroom.