People
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Danielle Alvarez
Assistant Contracts Specialist
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George Angeli
System Engineering Group Leader
George Angeli, head of systems engineering for the TMT
project, has been involved in the design of Extremely
Large Telescopes since 2001. Before joining the TMT project
he worked on the Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope (GSMT)
project at NOAO/AURA. Earlier in his career, he built
various optical and electronics instruments, ranging from
lasers and optical interferometers to analytical spectrometers,
high performance analog electronics, and automated assembly
and test equipment. George has a PhD in electrical engineering
and optical science from the University of Arizona and
is the author of numerous technical papers in peer-reviewed
journals and conference proceedings.
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Curtis Baffes
Optomechanical Engineer
Curt Baffes has a bachelor's degree in mechanical
engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
An employee of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, he
has 5 years of experience in optomechanical design,
analysis, and hardware implementation. Curt has developed
mechanical systems for space-, Earth-, and Mars-based
optical instruments.
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Max Berry
Assistant Systems Administrator-IMSS
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Corinne Boyer
Senior Adaptive Optics Systems Engineer
Corinne Boyer obtained her engineering degree in servo
control and her master's degree in instrumentation and
control system from the Ecole Nationale Superieure d’Ingenieurs
de Caen, France, in 1986. Corinne has 20 years of experience
in managing, designing, developing, and testing adaptive
optics control systems. In 1998, she moved to the United
States to join the Gemini Observatory in Hilo, where
she participated in the integration, testing, and commissioning
of the Gemini telescopes. Since 2005, Corinne has been
working for the TMT and is now the AO systems engineer.
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David Crampton
Instruments Group Leader
David Crampton has a PhD in astrophysics from the University
of Toronto. David has been a user of forefront optical
telescopes since 1965 and has been involved in the planning
of such facilities since 1974 (CFHT). As PI of several
instruments (primarily for CFHT and Gemini) David has
overseen the development of astronomical instrumentation
for over 30 years, and led the instrumentation team
at Victoria for 20 years. David has also established
a strong reputation in astrophysical research, publishing
more than 400 articles.
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Sandra Dawson
Task Leader for TMT Site Master Planning
Sandra has a bachelor of arts degree in political
science and a master's in international studies from
Claremont Graduate University. Sandra worked at JPL
for 20 years on some of JPLs largest projects, and
received numerous group and individual awards. Sandra
has expertise in environmental policy and legal compliance
for science projects and in the communication of technical
and legal risks. She is the environmental policy and
communication lead at TMT.
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Pratheep Eamranond
Senior Contracts Specialist
Pratheep has a bachelor's degree in liberal arts from
Clark University, a JD from the Illinois Institute
of Technology, Chicago-Kent College of Law, and is
pursuing an MBA from Claremont Graduate University's
Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito School of Business.
Pratheep has 8 years of experience in contract negotiation
and management, is a member of the California Bar
Association, and has passed the Illinois State Bar.
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Brent Ellerbroek
Adaptive Optics Group Leader
Brent Ellerbroek has a bachelor of science in mathematics
from the University of California at Los Angeles, and
received his PhD in mathematics from the California
Institute of Technology. He has over 25 years of experience
in modeling, designing, and testing adaptive optical
systems for atmospheric turbulence compensation. Brent
has expertise in the application of control theory and
computational mathematics to adaptive optics, adaptive
optics component technologies, adaptive optics modeling
and systems engineering, and project/contract management.
He is a Fellow and a journal editor for the Optical
Society of America and a frequent chair of conferences
on adaptive optics.
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Luc Gilles
Adaptive Optics Analyst
Luc Gilles has a PhD in physics from Imperial College,
London, UK. Luc has 14 years experience in the analysis,
modeling, and simulation of optical components and
systems, including 7 years experience in astronomical
adaptive optics. Luc has authored more than 20 refereed
journal papers on a wide range of problems in quantum
and nonlinear optics, photonics, imaging, and adaptive
optics.
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Paul Gillett
Site Selection Project Manager
Paul Gillett obtained bachelor’s and master’s degrees
in civil engineering and began his career working on
the design and construction of offshore oil installations.
Later, after obtaining his PhD, he did early design
work on the Next Generation Telescope project, which
eventually led to the Gemini Project. For several years
in the interim, he worked for architectural-engineering
companies and then returned to the astronomy field to
work on the Gemini telescopes. Paul designed the telescope
mount and pier, and was heavily involved in the design
of the summit facilities. He then was the site manager
for construction of the Gemini South facilities, and
was later the project manager for the Gemini southern
headquarters building. Gillett now manages the TMT site-testing
effort and has become responsible for the TMT facilities,
which include buildings, general equipment, and other
site infrastructure.
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David Goodman
Business Manager
David Goodman has over 30 years of business experience
in global engineering and manufacturing organizations.
He has effectively shaped and led teams responsible for
finance, budgeting, accounting, contracts, pricing, estimating,
project controls, human resources, supplier management,
procurement, and property management. David has a degree
in economics from the University of Missouri, Columbia.
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Peter Gray
Assistant
Project Manager
Peter Gray has a bachelor of science degree in physics and
a bachelor of engineering degree in mechanical engineering
from the University of Sydney. He has over 26 years of experience
of engineering design and operations support for many of
the world's major observatories and large telescope projects.
His early career at the Anglo-Australian Observatory was
in the design and construction of astronomical instrumentation,
particularly multi-object fiber spectrographs, where he
helped pioneer this technology. Gray moved to the University
of Arizona where he was involved in many projects at the
Mirror Lab, MMT, and LBT telescopes. He later led the assembly
and integration phase for ESO's four VLT telescopes at Paranal
Observatory in Chile, where, as head of engineering, he
established engineering operations support. He has worked
on system engineering for the ALMA project, and most recently
served as Associate Director of Engineering at the Gemini
Observatory, where he successfully led the engineering team
during the transition from commissioning to science operations.
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Florence Kaufman
Controller
Florence Kaufman has a bachelor's degree in accounting and
an MBA from California State University at Los Angeles.
She qualified as a CPA in 1970 and has experience in private,
public, and governmental accounting. She worked as a financial
analyst for the LIGO project for 9 years.
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Douglas MacMynowski
Senior Research Fellow in Control/Dynamical
Systems
Douglas MacMynowski is a senior research fellow in the Department
of Control and Dynamical Systems at the California Institute
of Technology. MacMynowski received his bachelor of applied
science degree from the University of Toronto in 1987, and
SM and PhD in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT in 1990
and 1992. Prior to joining Caltech in 2000, he led the active
control research and development program at United Technologies
Research Center. His expertise includes controls, structural
dynamics, acoustics, and fluid dynamics, and he is an author
or co-author on five patents and over 60 papers.
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Jerry Nelson
Project Scientist
Jerry Nelson has a bachelor of science in physics from
Caltech, and a PhD in elementary particle physics from
the University of California in Berkeley. He is the
appointed Project Scientist of TMT and currently a professor
of astronomy and astrophysics in the University of California
in Santa Cruz. He has earned numerous honors for his
work on the Keck Telescope, and has experience in experimental
high energy physics, observational astronomy, astronomical
instrumentation, and telescope design. He has extensive
knowledge of optics, optical support systems, kinematic
design, and structural engineering. Jerry has received
various awards and is a member of the National Academy
of Sciences. He has authored numerous publications in
physics, astronomy, instrumentation, and telescope design.
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Holly Novack
Office Administrator
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Jeff Oram
Cost Estimator
Jeff Oram has bachelor's and master's degrees in mathematics
from Eastern Washington University and an MBA degree in
finance from Loyola Marymount University. Jeff has
10 years of experience in financial and operations cost
modeling, and 5 years of experience as a mathematics instructor.
Jeff has expertise in developing parametric cost models,
project proposal pricing, and database development.
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Ben Platt
Senior Optical Engineer
Ben Platt has a master's degree in physics from Louisiana
State University and a PhD in optical sciences from the
University of Arizona. He has over 30 years of experience
in the field of optical engineering, fabrication, and
research. He has experience in infrared technology, lithography,
high energy lasers, large telescopes, interferometry,
optical fabrication and testing, airborne and space optics,
and ophthalmic instruments for vision correction, and
has authored many papers and invention reports in these
areas. He holds a patent for an ophthalmic UV projection
system used in a vision correction instrument. His skills
include optical engineering, fabrication, testing, analysis,
documentation, and contract management. He is a member
of the SPIE. While working at JPL, Platt received a NASA
award for the development of a critical optical component
for a space-based interferometer.
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Lennon Rodgers
Mechanical Engineer
Lennon Rodgers has a bachelor's degree in mechanical
engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
and a master's degree in mechanical engineering from MIT.
He has worked on the Keck Interferometer and the Space
Interferometry Mission.
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Gary Sanders
Project Manager
Gary Sanders spent 25 years performing high-energy
physics experiments at laboratories in the United States
and Europe. He earned an AB degree in physics from Columbia
University and a PhD in high-energy physics from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has been a
faculty member in physics at Princeton University and
a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. In 1994,
Gary came to Caltech to serve as the Project Manager
and Deputy Director for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational
Wave Observatory (LIGO) project. Gary joined TMT as
its Project Manager in 2004. He is the author or a co-author
of more than 175 peer-reviewed publications and he has
been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society.
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Matthias Schoeck
Site Testing Scientist/Manager
Matthias Schoeck started his studies in physics at
the University in Karlsruhe, Germany and received his
PhD in astrophysics from the University of Wyoming in
1998. He has been working on site testing issues for
TMT, and previously for CELT/GSMT, since 2001. His previous
experience, gained during postdoctoral positions in
Lyon, France and Irvine, California, is in adaptive
optics and methods of atmospheric turbulence analysis.
Matthias currently leads the TMT Site Testing Group.
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David Silva
Observatory Scientist
David Silva has a bachelor of science degree in astronomy
and physics from the University of Arizona and a PhD
from the University of Michigan. His scientific interests
are extragalactic stellar populations, early-type galaxies,
stars above the TRGB, and digital stellar libraries.
He has more than 20 years of experience in observatory
operations with a particular emphasis on user support,
end-to-end data management systems, queue observing,
and data processing and quality control. Prior to joining
the TMT project team, he was a member of the NOAO science
staff for 6 years and the ESO science staff for 9 years.
He is currently an AURA Senior Scientist, seconded to
the TMT Project Office.
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Mark Sirota
Telescope Controls Group Leader
Mark Sirota has bachelor's and master's degrees in
electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
and California State University at Fullerton, respectively.
Prior to joining TMT, Mark spent nearly 15 years at
the W.M. Keck Observatory as part of the Senior Management
Team and was the Project Manager for the Magdalena Ridge
Observatory Interferometer. Mark’s background is in
dynamics and control and he has authored a number of
papers on the subject; in addition, Mark has experience
in technical and project management. Mark is responsible
for TMT's telescope control systems, including precision
control of the 492 primary mirror segments.
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Warren Skidmore
Site Testing Scientist
Warren Skidmore has a bachelor of science degree (honors)
in physics and astrophysics from Leicester University,
master of science degree in astrophysics from QMWC, University
of London, and a PhD in astrophysics from Keele University.
He has published many research articles within the field
of cataclysmic variables, is an experienced and active
observational astronomer, and often acts as a referee
for astronomical journals. Warren has worked extensively
within the TMT site testing group and has developed new
methods for assessing the quality of sites for astronomical
observations. He continues to work within the TMT systems
engineering group as an experimental scientist, assisting
the design and development of TMT by investigating the
behavior of the telescope subsystems.
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Larry Stepp
Telescope Department Head
Larry Stepp has a bachelor's degree in interdisciplinary
science and a master's degree in engineering mechanics
from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. He has more
than 20 years of experience in the mechanical design,
fabrication, and testing of large optics, including
management responsibility for the WIYN primary mirror
assembly and the Gemini Optics group. Larry led the
AURA New Initiatives Office team that developed the
concept for the Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope (GSMT),
one of the precursors to TMT. He has been active in
the SPIE symposiums on telescopes and instruments for
astronomy and has chaired several conferences.
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Kei Szeto
Telescope Structures Group Leader
Kei Szeto has a bachelor of engineering degree in mechanical
engineering from McGill University and a master's degree
in ocean engineering from the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology. Kei has over 20 years of mechanical engineering
design experience, including more than 10 years of direct
experience in the development of astronomical instruments.
Kei has led teams of astronomers, engineers, and technicians
in various instrumentation projects. Kei's expertise
is in optomechanical design, structural and dynamic
analyses, and scientific project management by providing
technical and organizational leadership to the design
team. Kei is a Professional Engineer in the province
of British Columbia, Canada.
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Tony Travouillon
Site Testing Scientist
Tony Travouillon has a doctorate in astronomy from the
University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. After
spending a few years site testing the Antarctic continent
with Australian and European teams, Tony joined TMT to
study the candidate sites for this project. He is specialized
in astroclimatology, or developing and applying instrumentation
to measure the different atmospheric parameters that affect
the performance of an observatory.
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Thang Trinh
Lead Telescope Controls SW Engineer
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Konstantinos Vogiatzis
Senior Aero-thermal Engineer
Konstantinos Vogiatzis has a bachelor's degree in mechanical
engineering from the National Technical University of
Athens, Greece, a PhD in engineering science from Louisiana
State University at Baton Rouge with minors in astrophysics
and oceanography, and has done postdoctoral studies in
computational fluid dynamics at the University of Kentucky
in Lexington. Konstantinos has more than 14 years of experience
in performing flow simulations of aerospace and mechanical
systems configurations. He has expertise in the modeling
and analysis of telescope performance, computational fluid
dynamics simulations of wind flow above topography, inside
enclosures, around telescopes, and inside combustion chambers
of turbines engines and power plants. Konstantinos is
a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and
Astronautics and a registered professional mechanical
engineer with the Technical Chambers of Greece.
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Lianqi Wang
Asst Adaptive Optics Systems Analyst
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Eric Williams
Telescope Optics Group Leader
Eric Williams has a bachelor's degree in engineering
(mechanical) from San Francisco State University. Eric
has over 20 years of mechanical design and analysis
experience, much gained in the aerospace industry, where
he contributed to the development of composite spacecraft
structures, submarine propulsion systems, and solid
rocket development programs prior to specializing in
optomechanics in recent years. Eric has extensive experience
designing and optimizing structural components and systems,
including flexure-based support systems, kinematic mounts,
and precision mechanisms.
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Magnolia Ycasas
Human Resources Specialist
Magnolia Ycasas has a bachelor of arts degree in business
management with a major in human resources administration
from De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines.
Magnolia has 12 years of experience in performing
skilled, confidential functions utilizing her expertise
in human resources, in areas such as employment, benefits
administration, payroll, staff development/training,
employee relations, compensation, employee services,
employer-sponsored visa services, and leave and disability
administration. She is also involved in creating programs
critical to TMT's workplace environment consistent
with the project's organizational goals.
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Joelle Zavzavadjian
Senior Financial Analyst
Joelle Zavzavadjian has a bachelor's degree in biology
from East Central University, a master’s degree in
physiology from the University of Oklahoma, and an
MBA with a concentration in finance from the University
of Redlands. Joelle has 7 years of experience in performing
data management, organization, and analysis. She is
responsible for the analysis of past and present financial
operations to determine trends, generate budget forecasts,
and optimize resources. She also establishes guidelines
and procedures to ensure adequacy, quality, and reliability
of financial information.
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