The CTIO "family" has gained some new members and lost -- at least temporarily -- some old ones, over the past months. Here are some new faces that our scientific visitors may see, and some old ones they may miss.
Eric Rubenstein, his wife Debbie and sons Yoni (5) and Ari (2.5) arrived in early July. They come to us from Yale. Eric has won a NSF fellowship under the "International Research Fellow Awards Program" and will be spending a year at CTIO. He is an expert in CCD photometry with HST and ground-based data. His major interests are Pop II stellar mass-luminosity relationships, globular cluster studies, and instrumentation and detectors.
Lisa Germany (a six months visitor from Australia), left in July to return to ANU and finish her thesis. Much of her time here was spent at the 0.9-m, completing photometric calibrations for a large-scale study of supernovae in Abell clusters under the direction of Brian Schmidt. Her local sponsor was Nick Suntzeff. Lisa's thesis topic is a determination of the motion of the Local Group against the background cosmic flow, testing the Lauer and Postman results with a different distance indicator. In return for perfect photometric weather, Lisa taught us the rudiments of cricket.
Joining us for two months of the Northern summer was Timothy Bowers (University of Arizona undergraduate). Tim was recommended to us by his UA Honors Program academic mentor, Don McCarthy, and worked with Don Hoard on observations and analysis of interacting binary stars. Tim's Flinn Foundation scholarship includes a travel budget that allowed his stay here. His long hours at the telescope and computer terminal were relieved by a trip to the south of Chile during his stay.
Gabriel Perez (Senior Mechanical Engineer) is leaving CTIO after 25 years to work for Gemini. He will spend a few months in Hawaii, then return for the startup of Gemini South. So we will soon be seeing his friendly face once more in the AURA recinto, although it will be under a different hat.
Recent Gemini "returnees" are: Gustavo Arriagada and Manuel Lazo (former CTIO Electronics Engineers). They've spent two years in Hawaii bringing Gemini North on-line, and will now do the same for Gemini South. They are easily recognized as the only people in the recinto wearing aloha shirts.
New residents in the recinto are Mike Sheehan (Gemini Mechanical Systems Manager), his wife Michele and daughter Monica. Son Dan will be an occasional resident, between terms at college in Oregon. They will be here for about a year during the assembly of Gemini South.
As noted in the article about the SOAR telescope, German Schumacher (Senior Scientific Programmer) has been seconded to the SOAR project in Tucson for two years to develop telescope control software and instrument interfaces. We anticipate long-term benefits to CTIO's operational commitment for the telescope. German leaves behind his beloved and recently upgraded off-road vehicle for the more civilized(?) streets of Tucson.
Mauricio Navarette, long familiar to our mountain scientific visitors and most recently working in mountain Software support, has resigned to take a position at Las Campanas Observatory.
Ron Probst (rprobst@noao.edu)