We are very pleased to welcome a number of new scientific staff to NOAO in Tucson this coming fall and winter.
Ian Dell'Antonio will be joining us as a Kitt Peak Postdoc. Ian got his PhD from Harvard, working with Margaret Geller on peculiar velocities in large-scale structures and properties of groups of galaxies. He will come to Tucson from Bell Labs, where he is working with Tony Tyson on projects involving gravitational lensing of galaxies by clusters of galaxies and by other galaxies through analysis of HST images. He also collaborated on the software development for the BTC camera, currently in use at CTIO. He plans to pursue three major topics during his fellowship: strong gravitational lensing through further HST images; weak lensing through wide-field CCD images from the BTC and KPNO Mosaic Imager; and growth of large-scale structure through determination of peculiar velocities in structures like the Great Wall.
Sangeeta Malhotra will be coming to us as a Hubble Fellow. She got her PhD from Princeton with Jill Knapp with a study of the vertical structure and kinematics of atomic and molecular gas in the Galaxy. She will come here from IPAC at Caltech, where she is working with the US ISO Key Project on the ISM and star formation in normal galaxies. Her interests also include determination of the star-formation efficiency in galaxies in Butcher-Oemler clusters through measurement of the molecular gas content, the Galactic mass distribution through gravitational microlensing of halo sources, and searching for dust signatures in quasar absorption systems.
Arjun Dey will also arrive as a Hubble Fellow. Arjun received his PhD from UC Berkeley with Hy Spinrad for investigations of high-redshift radio galaxies. Arjun was a Kitt Peak postdoc, and took the first year of his Hubble Fellowship at Johns Hopkins. He is working on the stellar content, dynamical state, recent star-formation history, and chemical abundances of high-redshift progenitors of bulge-like galaxies; determination of ages of high-redshift massive elliptical galaxies; and exploitation of the NOAO Deep-Wide Survey to identify the entire evolving luminous elliptical galaxy population to z = 2. We are very pleased that Arjun will become a member of the Kitt Peak scientific staff in December 1999.
Joan Najita is a new addition to the Kitt Peak scientific staff starting in September. Joan was awarded her PhD from UC Berkeley from work with Frank Shu on modeling of accretion processes in protostellar disks. Joan was a CfA postdoc, and comes to us from STScI. Joan will use infrared spectroscopy to study circumstellar disks, to probe the structure, kinematics, and chemical abundances at size scales smaller than that of the solar system. She will also use Phoenix to examine gap formation from unseen planetary companions at AU distances. Joan's service responsibilities will include support and development of near-IR spectroscopic capabilities.
Steve Strom will join our staff in the ScOpe Division in January. Steve got his PhD at Harvard, and served on the faculty of SUNY Stony Brook before joining the KPNO scientific staff. He left here for a faculty position at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and returns to us from there, where he is both Chair of the Five College Astronomy Department and Director of the Large Millimeter Telescope Project. Steve's drive is to understand the origin of the stellar initial mass function through carefully selected samples from near-infrared photometry and spectroscopy; and the origin of stellar angular momentum by subjecting the disk regulation hypothesis to rigorous tests. Steve will serve the Observatories by exploring ways for NOAO to facilitate and lead community-based surveys, by defining and implementing plans for Gemini era operations, and by providing intellectual energy to our long-term planning and role in the broader scientific community.
John Glaspey is the new Supervisor of Mountain Scientific Support. John received his PhD from the University of Arizona, working with Bart Bok and Dave Crawford on photoelectric photometry of open clusters. He was a staff member at the University of British Columbia and the University of Montreal before serving as Resident Astronomer, then Associate Executive Director of the CFHT. He comes to us from the position of Facility Manager for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope. John will have the major responsibility of the day-to-day scientific productivity of Kitt Peak. We know that his experience and expertise will serve the Observatory well in this challenging position.
Yes, John is taking over the mountain-based responsibilities from Bruce Bohannan. Bruce chose a change of scene as of 15 March 1998. He continues to lead the scientific oversight of the Kitt Peak improvement projects and the exploration of key issues in long-term technical planning as Kitt Peak Projects Scientist. In addition, he is spearheading an effort for enhanced reporting and dissemination of scientific discoveries from NOAO, as strongly urged by the NSF, AURA, and our external committees. Bruce provided the impulse that changed the approach to support on Kitt Peak. His principle of scientific productivity of the facility as the unquestioned top priority has maintained KPNO's reputation for excellence through difficult times. We remain enormously grateful to Bruce for this extraordinary contribution. I look forward to a management team strengthened by the presence of both Bruce and John, dedicated to the highest quality scientific performance of Kitt Peak.
Richard Green