February 2026 Club-Business and Speaker Presentation - Topic: Heliophysics.

On Feb 17th 2026 at 8pm EST, Theodore van Kessel will be giving a fascinating presentation on "using AI (specifically Surya) to model and predict solar weather". titled: Surya - A Foundation Model for Heliophysics

He will be discussing the Surya foundation model for solar forecasting, data preparation, model architecture and downstream tasks including solar flare prediction.

Theodore has been with IBM Research for 45 years with a background in nuclear engineering, electrical engineering, optics and computer science. Over this time, his projects have included semiconductor manufacturing, high power chip cooling, solar power, oil and gas well modeling, carbon capture and more recently the development of foundation models for solar weather and partial differential equations.
Prior to the presentation MHAA will conduct a club business meeting, which will start at 7:30 PM. The talk will start at 8:00 PM, but anyone who wishes to join the business meeting is welcomed.

Participants may email Bart Hennin or call or text Tim Denman at 845-245-5483 for assistance or for further details.