Sam Krucker currently holds a double appointment, shared between the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW) and the Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL), University of California, Berkeley, USA. His main scientific interests are in problems of plasma astrophysics, especially heliospheric physics, from an observational and experimental point of view. Over the past two decades, he has been a leading figure in solar flare research, and he is the Principle Investigator of the hard X-ray spectroscopic imager STIX onboard ESA’s Solar Orbiter mission.