Staff Directory
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Science - Adaptive Optics
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Julian Christou is Adaptive Optics Scientist for Gemini North. Julian obtained a B.Sc. in Astronomy from the University of London and a Ph.D. From New Mexico State University. He has worked in the field of high-spatial resolution ground based imaging, initially with speckle techniques and then with Adaptive Optics. He has AO experience with the US Air Force (Starfire Optical Range) and with the Center for Adaptive Optics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Before joining Gemini, Julian served as a Program Officer for the National Science Foundation's Division of Astronomical Sciences. |
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Markus Hartung is an Associate Scientist located at Gemini South. For his Ph.D. thesis, he worked on NAOS-CONICA, which became the first adaptive-optics facility instrument at the VLT. After a year (2000) at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, preparing the diffraction-limited near-infrared camera CONICA for its integration with the adaptive-optics system NAOS, he went to Paris (CNRS/Observatoire Paris-Meudon) and eventually accompanied the instrument to Chile until its "First Light". He received his Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg in 2003 and returned to the VLT as an ESO fellow. In mid-2007, he joined Gemini to work on the AO aspects within NICI and MCAO. His present research focuses on high-contrast imaging and the study of solar system objects (i.e., Titan) with adaptive optics. |
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Benoit Neichel is an Adaptive Optics Fellow at Gemini South. He obtained his PhD in Astrophysics from the Paris 7 University in 2008. His thesis work included the study of wide field Adaptive Optics systems for the future Extremely Large Telescopes, with a particular interest on Multi-Object Adaptive Optics. At Gemini he is involved in supporting the integration of MCAO, the development of high level software for the control of the Canopus bench, and the MCAO calibrations and optimizations. His research interests also concentrate on galaxy formation and evolution through the kinematic and morphology properties of distant galaxies. |
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Francois is the Adaptive Optics Senior Scientist at Gemini. After obtaining his PhD in Astronomy in 1992 from the Universite Paris VII under the supervision of Pierre Lena, Francois worked at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope until 1997, following the construction, integration and tests of PUEO, one of the first user friendly AO system. Francois then moved on to spend almost 2 years at ESO as the AO group leader, participating to NAOS (now operating at the VLT) and obtaining funding for MACAO (the VLTI AO systems). Since early 1999, he has been at Gemini, doing Adaptive Optics research, following and steering the AO program, and generally being the Jack-of-all-trade in high resolution matters. Lately, Francois mostly concentrated on Altair LGS and MCAO. |