Lund, April 20, 2001
To: Immigration and Naturalization Services of United States
Dear Immigration and Naturalization Examiners:
This letter is submitted in support of Dr. Jian-Guo Wu’s application for Permanent
Residency in the United States.
I have known Dr. Wu (661025-0950) since 1993. As a Ph.D. student, he was under my
supervision, with Prof. Arne Ardeberg, the Vice-Chancellor of Lund University, as cosupervisor. His research field is in solar-terrestrial physics (i.e. how the Sun influences
Earth’s atmosphere and technological systems). We have attended several international
meetings in USA and Europe together. He defended his thesis, “Space Weather Physics:
Dynamic Neural Network Studies of Solar Wind-Magnetosphere Coupling” on May 22
1997 with great success. Faculty opponent was Dr. Dimitris Vassiliadis at Goddard Space
Flight Center, NASA, USA.
I hold a Professor position at Lund University and currently serve as the head of SolarTerrestrial Physics Division, Swedish Institute of Space Physics. I did my Ph.D. work at
Stanford University in California in the early eighties. I have since then closely
collaborated with the world-renowned institution. In late eighties, I started to apply
Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a method to model and predict the Sun’s effect on Earth’s
atmosphere and technological systems such as satellites, communication, navigation and
power systems, on which topic I was frequently invited as a speaker on international
meetings. I am very pleased to recruit Dr. Wu to join our team and we have hosted
international workshops on “AI Applications in Solar-Terrestrial Physics” at Lund in
1993 and 1997.
We have now become the leading group in the world in this field. Dr. Wu made a very
important contributions with his work. Dr. Wu pioneered his research work in application
of advanced and complex artificial intelligence methods in space physics. He is one of
the few scientists in the world who can develop data-driven and theory-based hybrid
systems capable of accurately predicting geomagnetic storms and their adverse impact on
spacecraft. Dr. Wu have been invited as the speaker at several conferences in recognition
of his extraordinary research work in space physics. His research work of real-time
predictions of geomagnetic storms, based on real-time solar wind data downloaded from
the NASA ACE (Advanced Composition Explorer) satellite and artificial neural
networks, is frequently cited and regularly applied by users all over the world.
In June 1996, a new solar-terrestrial physics division of the Swedish Institute of Space
Physics was established at Lund. I am the head of that division. After finishing his
doctoral studies in 1997, Dr. Wu worked for the Swedish Institute of Space Physics to
investigate how the space weather can cause satellite anomalies, which was supported by
ESA (European Space Agency). In one of his remarkable research papers, being
published in American Geophysical Union (AGU) journal, Geophysical Research
Letters, vol. 25, 3031, 1998, he convincingly proves that his prediction methods could
have been used to avoid the failure of a communication satellite owned by AT&T on
January 11, 1997. (Please refer to the American Geophysical Union Website,
http://spike.geophys.washington.edu/Space/GRL/articles/25/15/3121wu).
In 1998, Dr. Wu was one of the 48 contestants who were from all over the world for the
tenure position at the Solar-Terrestrial Physics Division of Danish Meteorological
Institute in Copenhagen. Those forty-eight applicants are the very top scientists in the
whole world in this particular field, but there was only one tenure position available. Dr.
Wu distinguished himself as the best among such an extraordinary group of scientists and
he is the only one who received the position at the world’s most prestigious institution.
Dr. Wu is a very talent and hard-working scientist. I strongly believe that Dr. Wu
research work is in the best interest of United States. I am convinced that he will be able
to achieve greater undertakings in USA. Therefore, I fully support his application without
reservation and I wish him all success.
Sincerely
Professor Henrik Lundstedt, Ph.D.
Head of the Solar-Terrestrial Physics Division
Swedish Institute of Space Physics
Scheelev. 17
SE-223 70 Lund
Sweden
Tel: +46-46-2862120
Fax: +46-46-129879
Email: henrik@irfl.lu.se or hlundstedt@solar.stanford.edu