Invited Speakers
To date, we have confirmed that the following invited speakers will be presenting at ADASS XVI. Please check back over the coming weeks for additional speakers and topics.
| Challenges and Solutions for Very Large Data | |
 Jeff Kantor (LSST Corp.) |
Jeff Kantor is Project Manager, Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) Data Management. In this capacity Mr. Kantor is responsible for implementing computing and communications systems to provide calibration, quality assessment, processing, archiving, end user and external system access of astronomical image and engineering data produced by the LSST.
Mr. Kantor has created, tailored, applied, and audited software processes for a wide variety
of organizations, including ICONIX Software Engineering, the NASA International Space
Station Program, and the U.S. Department of Defense. He has been responsible for
some of these organizations achieving ISO9000 Certification and SEI CMM Level 2
assessments. Mr. Kantor has also taught formal classes in object oriented analysis and
design, Unified Modeling Language (UML), use-case driven testing, and software project
management.
|
 Tom Handley (IPAC) |
Tom Handleyis currently Deputy Manager of the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center
(IPAC). Within IPAC, Tom is involved in science information development lifecycle across the board, from
developing missions, to operational missions (SIRTF) and the long-term curation of mission science
products (IRSA). Recent research areas include data mining, including cross-identification, information
discovery, data management, rapid access to Terabyte-size datasets, and science information systems
architectures.
Talk Title: Spitzer, an Example Enterprise Architecture |
| Advances in Imaging & Calibration Algorithms | |
 Tim Cornwell (ATNF) |
Tim Cornwell is a scientist and research manager at the Australia Telescope National Facility in
Sydney. He has been working on astronomical imaging algorithms for nearly thirty years, principally for radio
synthesis arrays, but also for optical and infrared imaging telescopes. He has been deeply involved with
many aspects of astronomical software development, including a period of time as AIPS++ project
manager, and in charge of data management for the NRAO. He is currently working on imaging algorithms
and software for a new generation of radio telescopes including the Square Kilometer Array.
Talk title: Calibration and Imaging for the Next Generation of Radio Synthesis Telescopes |
| Quality Management | |
 Nicole Radziwill (NRAO) |
Nicole Radziwill is the Assistant Director for End to End Operations at the
National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) headquarters in Charlottesville,
VA. Prior to this post, she spent four years as Division Head for Software
Development for NRAO's Green Bank, WV site. Before NRAO, her experience
includes managing consulting engagements in Customer Relationship Management
(CRM) and Sales Force Automation (SFA) for telecommunications clients of
Nortel Networks, and working in scientific computation at the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Forecast Systems Laboratory in
Boulder, CO. She has over a decade of experience managing continuous
improvement efforts in business and technology, specializing in software
development and process improvements that result from information
technology. Nicole has a degree in meteorology, an MBA, and is currently
pursuing a doctorate in Technology Management and Quality Systems. She is an
ASQ Certified Quality Manager and the Regional Councilor for ASQ's Software
division in West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee.
Talk title: Quality Management in Astronomical Data Management Systems |
 Giuseppina Fabbiano (CfA/CXC) |
Giuseppina (Pepi) Fabbiano is a senior astrophysicist at the Smithsonian
Astrophysical Observatory, a member of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics. Besides pursuing research in observational astronomy, with a
focus on the X-ray properties of galaxies, she is the Head of the Data Systems
Division of the Chandra X-ray Center. She has a long-standing involvement in
Data Centers, data management, and lately in the Virtual Observatory.
Talk Title: The Chandra Source Catalog Project |
| Modern Grid Computing in Astronomy | |
 Joe Mohr (UIUC) |
Joseph Mohr is an associate professor of astronomy and of physics at the University of Illinois.
He works on questions of structure formation and cosmology, and has most recently focused on the use of galaxy
cluster surveys and the angular power spectrum of galaxies to study the cosmic acceleration. He is involved in
several key projects in this area: co-PI of the South Pole Telescope, co-founder of the Dark Energy Survey, PI
of the Blanco Cosmology Survey and co-I of the proposed Joint Dark Energy Mission DECS: The Dark Energy
Cluster Survey. Mohr is also a research scientist at the National Center for Suerpcomputing Applications (NCSA)
where he is leading the development of the Dark Energy Survey data management system.
Talk title: The Dark Energy Survey Data Management Project |
| Architectures for Large Astronomy Software Systems | |
 Françoise Genova (CDS) |
Françoise Genova
has been director of the CDS (Strasbourg astronomical Data Centre) since 1995. She participates in the day-to-day work of CDS, e.g.
scientific expertise on nomenclature for SIMBAD and R&D projects
in collaboration with IT laboratories. She has been involved in the international
development of the VO from very early stages, and coordinates the
Euro-VO Data Centre Alliance, a European project starting in September 2006
which aims at fostering take-up of the VO framework by European Data Centres.
She is the ougoing President of IAU Commission 5,
Documentation and astronomical data (2003-2006).
Talk title: The Many Faces of Simbad |
| Joe Mazzarella (IPAC) | Talk title: Talk title: NED for a New Era |
 Will O'Mullane (ESAC) |
William O'Mullane began his career in space science in 1993 when he joined ESOC
as a Young Graduate Trainee working on the SCOSII system. In 1996 he moved to ESTEC to assist with the
production of the Hipparcos CDROMS. During this period he was also involved with the Planck and Integral
science ground segments as well as contemplating the Gaia data processing problem. From 2000-2005 Wil
worked on developing the US National Virtual Observatory (NVO) and on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)
in Baltimore, USA. In August 2005 he rejoined ESA as Gaia Science Operations Development Manager to lead
the ESAC development effort for the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium. His main interests remain
the Global Iterative Solution and overall system architecture of the Gaia Data Processing to which the ESAC
team intend to make a major contribution.
When not computing William enjoys motorbikes, Salsa and taking photos which may be seen on his personal website.
Talk title: GAIA Data Processing Architecture |
 Yuji Shirasaki (NAOJ) |
Dr. Yuji Shirasaki
Yuji Shirasaki is a scientist at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. Currently he is working for the
Japanese Virtual Observatory project and also is a co-chair of the VO Query Language working group of
International VO Aliance.
Talk title: Talk title: The SUBARU Advance Data Service |
| Solar Neighborhood/Planetary Astronomy | |
 Christophe Arviset (ESAC) |
Christophe Arviset is leading the ESA Science Archives and
Virtual Observatory Team at ESAC, Madrid, Spain. As such, he is responsible for
the design, development, operations and maintenance of ESA Astronomy Archives
(ISO, XMM-Newton, Integral, Herschel) and of ESA Planetary Science Archive
(Giotto, Mars Express, Rosetta, Smart-1, Huygens) which have been done within
a common architecture framework. Furthermore, he is in charge of the ESA VO project,
ensuring that all ESA Astronomy data at ESAC are also being published through the VO.
In addition, he is the manager of the Computer Support Group which provides IT support
to all ESA scientific missions at ESAC. In that context, he is coordinating all GRID
activities at ESAC. Talk title: ESA's Planetary Science Archive |
 Jeremy Kubica (Google) |
Jeremy Kubica is a software engineer at Google. He is a recent graduate of the
Ph.D. program at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, where he was supported by a fellowship
from the Hertz Foundation. His thesis research focused on large-scale data mining problems and the search
for structure in large, noisy data sets. Previously he received a B.S. in Computer Science from Cornell
University and a M.S. in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University. Talk title: Efficient Algorithms for Large-Scale Asteroid Discovery |
| Special Talk | |
 John Hill (LBTO) |
John Hill
John M. Hill received his B.S. in physics and chemistry from Geneva
College in 1979 and his Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of
Arizona in 1984. His major research activities include multiobject
spectroscopy of clusters of galaxies, the production of borosilicate
honeycomb mirrors and the design of large telescopes. He is currently
the technical director of the Large Binocular Telescope Project in
Tucson.
Talk Title: Large Binocular Telescope - Really a Binocular Now |