Staffing, Grants, and Supplements

Suzanne Jacoby

This is the time of year when managers review the previous year and forecast the future. Newsletter readers may be interested to know how Educational Outreach at NOAO is funded. There are currently 5.2 full-time-equivalent (FTE) employees in the group, up from the original half-time employee in 1995. Of these 5.2 FTEs, 2.83 are supported by core NSF/NOAO funding and 2.37 are funded by external grants, which include our RBSE grant from the NSF Education and Human Resources Directorate, supplemental funding from NSF/Astronomy to support Project ASTRO-Tucson, a NASA IDEAS grant, and NASA E/PO supplements to NOAO-affiliated research grants.

With nearly half the group funded outside the core program, obtaining ongoing funding is always a priority. Recent efforts are described below.

• Funding has been received through a supplement to Robin Ciardullo's NASA LTSA grant to develop Kitt Peak Visitor Center materials and NOAO public Web pages illustrating "The Origins and Properties of Intracluster Stars." This is a five-year grant, with a $10K supplement for E/PO expected each year. During the first year, Web pages, hands-on demonstrations, and a StarDate/Universo radio program (through McDonald Observatory) will be developed.

• Two additional E/PO supplements have been submitted with NASA research proposals involving NOAO staff: "A Public Web Interface for Exploring Multiwavelength Surveys," Arjun Dey, PI, in response to NRA 00-OSS-01, and "Student Interns Investigating Limiting Performance of Candidate NGST Near-IR Arrays," K. Michael Merrill, PI, in response to NRA 00-OSS-03. We're waiting to hear on the success of both these proposals.

• A preliminary proposal was submitted to the NSF Education and Human Resources Directorate to build on the RBSE Teacher Enhancement program and fund its continued development for the next five years. A full proposal has been encouraged and is due in October.