News

SLAC National Acceleratory Laboratory celebrated completion of the LSST camera assembly clean room on May 8. The clean room is necessary for assembly of the LSST camera because any dust settling on the image sensors would degrade the quality of the precision device. The air inside the new facility is about 1,000 times “cleaner” than ordinary air. The main 1,875 square feet work space has a ceiling height of 24 feet to allow the approximately 10-feet-long camera body to be mounted vertically for optical alignment and final testing.

Constanza Araujo joined LSST May 7 as the Telescope and Site Optics Engineer. Constanza will perform broad optical engineering analysis, provide technical support to the M2 Cell Assembly effort with Exelis, support the Calibration system design, and assist with development of integration and test procedures for initial telescope commissioning. She comes to LSST most recently from working at Gemini-South, where she was responsible for the multi-conjugate adaptive optics system, Flamingos-2, and the Acquisition and Guidance Unit. Constanza is based in Tucson; her office is in the LSST wing of 950 N. Cherry Avenue. Her room number, phone number and email address can be found in the LSST Contacts database. Welcome, Constanza.

Dr. Beth Willman has accepted the position of Deputy Director of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). She will perform this role as an Associate Astronomer at the Steward Observatory of the University of Arizona. Her appointment will become effective September 1, 2015.

Dr. Willman received her B.A. in astrophysics at Columbia University and a Ph.D. in astronomy at the University of Washington. She has been a James Arthur Fellow at the Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics at New York University, and a Clay Fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Since 2008 she has been a professor of Astronomy at Haverford College in Pennsylvania.

Tim Jenness joined the LSST Data Management group March 23 as Deputy System Architect. Tim will assist in all aspects of the DM system architecture, including refining the baseline design approved at Final Design Review (FDR) into the as-built design, doing "skunk works" rapid prototyping and evaluation projects, and helping institute good development processes. He brings a wealth of experience in large-scale processing systems and astronomical software in particular, and his ability to grasp the big picture while worrying the small details will be of great use. Prior to LSST, Tim was head of software for the CCAT telescope, and before that he was head of the scientific computing group for the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope and the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope.