John graduated from Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, NY in 1985 with an AAS in Industrial Technology Drafting. He has 14 years of experience in his field, and has been with NOAO for two and a half years. 

He is experienced in machine design application and interpretation of the ANSI Y14.5M Tolerancing Standard, CAD using Computervision, Bel-Cadd and Auto CAD, and engineering documentation practices and standards. 

John currently teaches Computer Aided Drafting and Introduction to Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing at Pima Community College.

Dan received his BS degree from Arizona State University in Electrical Engineering in 1970, and MSEE from the Air Force Institute of Technology in 1980 majoring in Electro-Optics. 

He worked in various flight and engineering duties with the Air Force, including four years in electronic systems analysis at the AF Operational Test Evaluation Center. 

After leaving the AF, he spent five years with the University of Arizona, primarily with the Optical Sciences Center as the Infrared Lab Manager.  For the past seven years (1992 to 1999) he was the Project Scheduler for the Gemini Telescopes Project.

Jay graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1972 with a MS in Planetary Science & BS in Physics, and from the California Institute of Technology in 1978 with a Ph.D. in Astronomy. He has 26 years of experience as an astronomer, and has been with NOAO for the last 16 years. 

His position on the GNIRS project is as Project Scientist, and he brings his expertise in  IR instrumentation and astronomy to bear on the project. 

Other projects he has worked on include the CTIO IR Imagers (58 x 62 InSb; 256 x 256 HgCdTe) and the CTIO IR Spectrometer and upgrades (8 x 1 InSb; 58 x 62 InSb;  256 x 256 InSb)

Neil graduated from California State Polytechnic 1964 with a BSEE, minoring in Mathematics. He has 30 years experience in design and systems engineering and project management, and was a college instructor of electronics and mathematics for 8 years. He has been at NOAO for 4-1/2 years and brings to the GNIRS project his expertise in organization skills, project management and leadership, and systems engineering experience. 

Other projects he has worked on include several classified DOD and NASA instrumentation projects, star trackers, and horizon sensors as well as the Phoenix spectrometer, COB imager, SQIID and the Gemini Aladdin Array Controller for NOAO.

Dick graduated from Williams College in 1965 with a BA in Physics, and from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1970 with his Ph.D. He has 28 years of experience in infrared astronomy, 25 of that at NOAO. He has experience in designing, assembly, and observing with a wide variety of infrared astronomical instrumentation. 

Instrument projects he has worked on include several single-channel near-IR and mid-IR photometers and  spectrophotometers (OTTO, AUDREY, BT, CCCP),  IRIM (IR imager with 256 X 256 HgCdTe array),  SQIID (4-channel IR imager), CRSP (IR spectrograph with 256 X 256 InSb array), and PHOENIX (High-resolution IR spectrograph with 512 X 1024 InSb array). 

Dick has written approximately 90 papers in infrared astronomy and instrumentation.

Ming received his MS from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He worked for the Astronomical Instrument Research Center of China and the Optical Science Center of the University of Arizona before coming to NOAO. 

He has been involved in the optical designs for the SOLIS Vector Spectromagnetograph, the Gemini Near Infrared Spectrograph,  the Prime focus Corrector and atmospheric dispersion compensator for the 4m telescope,  the guiding system for the Mosaic Imager,  the ABU infrared imager, NIM2, the CHARA high resolution telescope array, the Cassegrain corrector and spectrograph for the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatories 60” telescope, the Atmospheric dispersion corrector for the WIYN telescope, the Diamond testing spectrograph, the code spectrograph for Beiing Observatory and the Solar spectrograph for Yunnan Observatory. 

He has a strong optical design background with experience in testing, alignment, scatter light analysis and computer programming.

Gary graduated from the University of Arizona in 1989 with a BS in Mechanical Engineering and began working for NOAO in June of 1988 through the Cooperative Education Program at the University. From 1989-1991, he worked for General Dynamics Space Systems Division in San Diego, then returned to NOAO in 1991. He is experienced in managing instrumentation projects including scheduling, estimating, and organizing drawing breakdown structures. He was project engineer on the Hydra/CTIO multi-fiber robotic positioner, the Mosaic Wide Field Imager, the Hydra/WIYN conversion project, and participated on various projects including the 4M prime focus atmospheric dispersion corrector. 

He has a strong mechanical design background with experience in Dewar design, optics packaging, linear motion, pneumatics, thermal effects, basic structural analysis and a knowledge of manufacturing techniques. He is proficient in Auto CAD R14 and Mechanical Desktop 3.0 3-D parametric modeling software.

Mark graduated from Brown University in 1971 with an AB-ScB in Physics (while minoring in Philosophy) and from the University of Maryland in 1983 with an MS in Astronomy. He has 25 years of software and systems engineering experience and 15 years experience in program management. He has been at NOAO for 9 years and his position on the GNIRS project is as Work Package Manager. 

Other projects Mark has worked on include the Hubble Space Telescope ground control system, the GONG Data Storage and Distribution Service, and he has acted as Gemini Work Package Manager for NIRI, T-ReCS, and NIR Array Controllers. 

Mark has written two books on telescope control and over 20 papers on telescope control, telescope design, high speed photometry, and related topics.