Philippa Browning

Research and career After completing her PhD Browning worked as a postdoctoral researcher with Eric Priest. Her work covered the fundamentals of flux tubes. Browning was appointed a lecturer at University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) in 1985. She is particularly interested in solar flares. In 2009, Browning was promoted to professor at the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics. She served as editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research from 2010 to 2013. She contributed to the book Multi-scale Dynamical Processes in Space and Astrophysical Plasmas. She continues to study coronal heating. In January 2026, Browning announced her retirement from Manchester, after more than four decades of teaching and research at the institution.

In 2013 Browning was made chair of the Institute of Physics Plasma Physics Committee and the Solar Physics Council. Through the Solar Physics Council, Browning is a mentor for young solar physicists. In 2014 Browning arranged two-day meeting to discuss coronal heating at the Royal Society.

Browning is working on the Solar Orbiter and Parker Solar Probe. She has taken part in the Manchester Science Festival. Browning serves on the Institute of Physics Women in Physics advisory panel.

Awards and honours Browning was awarded the Chapman Medal by the Royal Astronomical Society in 2016. The medal recognised her "pioneering work on energy release by magnetic relaxation in stressed coronal magnetic fields". In 2017 she was awarded a Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) research grant to explore particle acceleration in twisted magnetic fields. She was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Physics (FInstP). Browning was the 2026 recipient of the Hannes Alfvén Prize of the European Physical Society Plasma Physics Division, given for "innovative results that bridge astrophysical and laboratory plasmas".