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Introduction
Reminder - PCW2022 (https://project.lsst.org/meetings/rubin2022/ )
Camera progress - https://www.lsst.org/news/lsst-camera-progress-together-last
LSSTC: “Dr. Beth Willman will join LSSTC on September 7th, 2022, to become its next Executive Director, taking on the previously separate roles of Chief Executive Officer and Director of Science. Pat Eliason, the current Chief Executive Officer, will overlap with Beth for a few weeks to ensure a smooth transition for the Corporation, and will retire at the end of September. Dr. Jeno Sokoloski will begin her transition from Director of Science to Director of LSSTC’s Catalyst Fellowship and LINCC-related programs.” from https://www.lsst.org/news/digest
RSP User Experience - https://community.lsst.org/t/the-rubin-science-platform-user-experience-recorded-presentation/6576
Those with ideas for future newsletter items should contact the LSST:UK Project Managers (George Beckett and Terry Sloanlusc_pm@mlist.is.ed.ac.uk), while everyone is encouraged to subscribe to the Rubin Observatory Digest for more general news from the US observatory team.
Executive Group elections
Following elections held in May, we welcome two new members - Cosimo Inserra and Kathy Romer - to the Executive Group.
Cosimo is an observational astrophysicist working on extragalactic time-domain astronomy. His current research focuses on the brightest supernovae explosions, usually referred to as "superluminous supernovae", and their use as high-redshift probes. He is also interested in astronomical transients defying the standard paradigm of stellar explosions and on the implementation of machine learning techniques to transient astronomy. Cosimo currently a Senior Lecturer at Cardiff University, holding the Deputy Director of Research and Director of Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity positions.
Originally from Tyneside, Kathy was awarded her BSc in Physics with Astrophysics from the University of Manchester in 1990 and her PhD in Astrophysics from the University of Edinburgh in 1995. She then moved to the USA and was a postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern University and at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). After a short time as a research professor at CMU, she secured a tenure track position there. She moved back to the UK in 2004 to take up a lectureship at the University of Sussex. She is still at Sussex and is now Professor of Astrophysics and the Director of Student Experience for the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences. Kathy is a world expert in the discovery and exploitation of X-ray clusters of galaxies. She is principal investigator of the XMM Cluster Survey collaboration and is senior member of the Dark Energy Survey collaboration.
At the same time as welcoming Cosimo and Kathy, we must say goodbye and express our gratitude to Adam Amara and John Stott, who have stepped down from the Exec Group at the end of their three-year terms. Both have participated very actively to the work of the Exec during the past three years.
Amongst Adam’s notable contributions were the setting up the successful GatherTown space that hosted the poster session at the 2021 LSST:UK All-Hands Meeting, as well as a providing a virtual venue for some informal mingling during the conference, at which Adam also led a session aimed at introducing LSST and LSST:UK to early career researchers.
John has volunteered for many duties during his time on the Exec. He has provided expert technical reviews of a number of Deliverables produced by the LSST:UK Science Centre (LUSC) team and, notably, served as a member of the important panel that selected the “DEV” Work Packages for inclusion in the LUSC Phase C proposal.
Richard McMahon’s term on the Exec also ended in May, but he decided to stand again and was duly appointed for a further three-year term. Richard is the Exec Group’s longest member, having served on it since its inception in 2015, and has provided sage advice on a range of topics, based on his long experience of survey astronomy, during that period.
Cosimo, Kathy and Richard are joined on the Exec by two existing members, Catherine Heymans and Aprajita Verma, who both have a further year remaining in their current terms. I’d like to give my personal thanks to all five, as Exec Group membership is a significant time commitment, which is greatly appreciated by the project leadership.
NAM sessions
Pool Travel Fund
LSSTC Data Science Fellowship Program
Forthcoming meetings of interest
Several meetings of potential interest have been scheduled for the coming months:
8-12 August 2022 – 2022 Project and Community Workshop, Ritz-Carlton Dove Mountain Resort, Tucson. This is primarily an in-person event, though some sessions (plenaries and general-interest sessions) will be virtually accessible for those who cannot attend in person.
1–5 August 2022 – the next DESC Collaboration Meeting will be held during 1st–5th August at the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago. More details will be available soon on the DESC Confluence site (login required).
11–15 July 2022 – National Astronomy Meeting is being held at Warwick University. In particular, two parallel sessions may be of interest: Preparing for the Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time organised by LSST:UK; and Discovery in Astronomy and Space Physics enabled by large-scale Digital Research Infrastructures (ASTROCOMP) organised by the IRIS programme.
Members of the Consortium (not in receipt of travel funding through one of the Science Centre grants) may apply for travel support for meetings of this kind via the the LSST:UK Pool Travel Fund. Details are available at https://lsst-uk.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/HOME/pages/25853997/LSST+UK+Pool+Travel+Fund .
Note that the current list of forthcoming meeting is always available on the Relevant Meetings page. You may also wish to check information held on the LSST organisation website LSST-organised events and the LSST Corporation website.
Announcements
If you have significant announcements that are directly relevant to LSST:UK and would like to share the announcement in a future newsletter, please contact the LSST:UK project managers.