AITC News
Published in the RSAA Lunations
Vol1 Issue21 1–31 October 2021
Dear RSAA staff and students,
With this article I am excited to be kicking off the first AITC-specific contribution to the RSAA monthly newsletter.
There have been a few changes and tweaks to the AITC governance in the past few months, and this may be as good an opportunity as any to bring the whole RSAA community up to speed on who is responsible for what in the RSAA Technical Department which you all know better as the Advanced Instrumentation and Technology Centre, or AITC.
Roger Haynes (AITC Technical Program Director), François Rigaut (Astralis-AITC Director) and I (AITC Deputy Director) continue to work closely with Matthew Colless (Interim AITC Director) to manage daily operations and plan for the AITC's future. I am happy to report that the AITC has been doing relatively well in the current difficult financial context that the ANU is operating in. This exceptional outcome of course would not be possible without the amazing dedication of our staff and students, working hard to deliver on existing projects and continuing to apply for and secure funding for future projects. The AITC future is looking bright and we expect to remain as busy as ever in the coming months and years!
The AITC Leadership Team, a.k.a the ALT (Matthew Colless, Celine d’Orgeville, Roger Haynes, and Minming Li) meets weekly to discuss and oversee AITC operational matters, while the AITC Executive Team a.k.a. the AITC Exec meets monthly to discuss AITC strategic matters. These include, but are not limited to, the health and strategic value of present and future AITC projects in our very large portfolio. The AITC Exec is made up of the AITC Directors, the AITC Program Leads, two elected professional staff representatives (Ian Price and Israel Vaughn) and one elected representative (Michael Copeland) for the AITC junior academics (level A-C). All senior AITC academics (level D-E) are already members of the AITC Exec by default and in their capacity as AITC Program Leads.
The AITC Program Leads include both Academic and Professional Staff Leads in recognition of the important role that all academic and professional staff are playing to make the AITC the highly successful business unit that it is. These are: Francois Rigaut (ESO MAVIS flagship program and Real-Time Computer program), Rob Sharp (GMTO flagship program and Earth Observation program), Celine d’Orgeville (Adaptive Optics program and AITC strategic program), Francis Bennet (Laser Communications program), James Gilbert (Detector program), Eduardo Trifoni (Space Testing program), Jon Nielsen (Software program), Roger Haynes (Support Services program), and Tony Travouillon (Telescope Instrumentation program and Education program).
As you can see AITC staff and students are engaged in an enormous variety of research, education, and commercial projects! In future months Lunations will endeavour to present each of the AITC Programs in more detail. Meanwhile, don’t hesitate to reach out to any of the AITC Program Leads to learn more about the exciting astronomical and space instrumentation work that is taking place at Mount Stromlo Observatory. Some of that work, which is considered essential for ANU and for Australia, has been quietly on-going in the AITC labs during the 2020 and 2021 COVID lockdowns. Although we’ve all learned to work from home in the past couple of years, I am sure that AITC staff and students alike will be pleased to resume some of our on-site activities in the not-too-distant future!
Until then…please take care and get vaccinated!
Cheers,
Celine
