Commission J business meeting

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Commission J business meeting

• January 3, 2008
• Boulder, CO

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Agenda

• Elect new vice chair
• Vote on new members
• Upcoming meetings
• Information about General Assembly this summer in
  Chicago
• Poster topics for GA Chicago Aug 2008
• Topics for Boulder 2009
• Nominations for member at large
• Jacqueline Hewitts term ended
• Do we have anyone we should nominate for
  international J vice chair?

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Vice chair election
Jim Cordes will be commission chair at next
Boulder meeting, Jan 2009 3 year term

• Name and contact information of the nominator and
  a seconder
• Don Backer -- dbacker_at_astro.berkeley.edu
• Rick Fisher -- rfisher_at_nrao.edu
• (2) Name and contact information of the
  candidate nominated
• Richard F. Bradley
• NRAO, Charlottesville, VA
• rbradley_at_nrao.edu
• 304-456-296-0291
• Rich has been unique at NRAO for his work with
  students on technical
• development programs. He was a pioneer on
  adaptive cancellation for RFI
• mitigation, and worked with Rick Fisher on early
  beam-forming array
• experiments. He is very interested in bridging
  the scientist-engineer
• culture gap, and is working on projects such as
  the search for dark matter
• axions with LLNL group (2005 PRL 95 091304-1),
  neutrino
• interactions with the moon, FASR (Frequency Agile
  Solar Radiotelescope
• http//www.fasr.org/) and PAPER (Precision Array
  to Probe the Epoch of
• Reionization http//astro.berkeley.edu/dbacker/E
  oR/). He is principle
• developer of the solar burst radio monitor

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New nominated members

• William Barott nominated by Jill Tarter
• Stuartt Corder nominated by Mel Wright
• Sheperd Doeleman nominated by Alan Rogers
• Todd Hunter nominated by Crystal Brogan
• Joseph Lazio nominated by Kurt Weiler
• Daniel Marrone nominated by Mel Wright

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William Barott nominated by Jill Tarter
I've attached Billy's resume, and give brief
summary of his qualifications below. Like Dave
DeBoer, he's an excellent student of Paul Steffes
at Georgia Tech. Jack will second this
nomination, and I think that Geoff Bower will
attend the business meeting on Thursday. He will
be able to speak enthusiastically on Billy's
behalf. Jack and I ended our trip to China with
some pretty serious intestinal distress, so we
are back in the States, but not yet in traveling
mode. William C. Barott specializes in applied
electromagnetics for communications and remote
sensing. His areas of expertise include
antennas, phased arrays, RF circuits, signal
processing. He has worked with NASA on ground
station designs for satellite communications, and
with the SETI Institute on geographical layouts
for a possible US Square-Kilometer-Array proposal
(US-SKA), and more recently, as an independent
consultant to design and implement an FPGA-based,
dual-polarization beamformer for the 42 antenna
Allen Telescope Array. He has also consulted
with industry for product development and
contributed his expertise as a technical expert
for patent-infringement litigation. Dr. Barott
joined the faculty of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical
University in Daytona Beach, Florida in 2006. He
is currently holds the position of Assistant
Professor, and is jointly appointed to the
Electrical and Systems Engineering department as
well as the Freshman Engineering department. He
is the author of numerous technical papers and
presentations. He is a member of the IEEE, and
holds a BS, MS, and PhD in Electrical Engineering
from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr.
Barott is one of the next generation of
instrument builders for radio astronomy. He
attended the Boulder URSI meeting in 2006, and
the North American URSI meeting in Ottawa last
summer. I think he will become an active
participant in future January meetings of US URSI
Comm J. I hope that this nomination is still in
time for the business meeting on Thursday. Happy
New Year. jill
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Stuartt Corder nominated by Mel Wright
Stuartt Corder Stuartt has been instrumental in
bringing the CARMA telescope on-line. He quickly
learned the fundamental limits for making high
fidelity images with the heterogeneous CARMA
telescope, and made extensive observations to
characterize and improve the antenna pointing and
primary beam patterns of the 6 and 10m antennas
in order to obtain the necessary image
fidelity for mosaic observations of the NGC7538
region. He developed observing procedures, wrote
observing scripts and analyzed the data to
characterize the antenna pointing and primary
beam patterns. Stuartt shows outstanding
leadership for someone of his age and works well
with his peers and senior staff. He has taken a
major role in the challenging task of bringing
the telescope to this stage and I except great
things for his future. Stuartt should thrive as a
scientist/engineer. He has creativity, enthusiasm,
and a very hands-on approach to problem
solving. Mel Wright
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Sheperd Doeleman nominated by Alan Rogers
nom_edu Ph.D. Physics MIT June 1995 BA Physics
Reed College 1986 nom_experience MIT Haystack
Observatory Staff Scientist 1998 -
present nom_research Millimeter VLBI. Studies
of SiO masers. VLBI on Quasars and Galactic
center nom_present quotA wideband digital
back end for radio astronomyquot - URSI July 23
2007 in Ottawa nom_attend URSI July 2007 in
Ottawa URSI 2006 in Colorado nom_pubs
Pihlstrom, Y.M., Taylor, G.B., Granot, J.
Doeleman, S.S., "Stirring the Embers
High-Sensitivity VLBI Observations of GRB
030329," ApJ, 664, p.411, 2007. Doeleman, S.S.,
Lonsdale, C., Kondratko, P. Predmore, C.R.,
"Using VLBI to Probe the Orion KL Outflow on AU
Scales, " ApJ, 607, p. 361, 2004. Doeleman, S.S.,
Lonsdale, C., Kondratko, P. Predmore, C.R.,
"Using VLBI to Probe the Orion KL Outflow on AU
Scales, " ApJ, 607, p. 361, 2004. Doeleman, S.S.,
Rogers, A.E.E., Crowley, J.W., Wright, M.C.H.,
Backer, D.C., Bower, G.C., Freund, R.W., Woody,
D.P., Lo, K.Y., Shen, Z.Q., Zhao, J.H., Ho,
P.T.P., "Structures of SgrA at 86 GHz using
VLBI Closure Quantities," AJ, 121, p.2610, 2001.
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Todd Hunter nominated by Crystal Brogan
I would like to nominate Todd Hunter (NRAO) for
membership. He certainly qualifies for the
publication and citizenship requirements, but he
has only given one talk at an URSI meeting
(Boulder 2006). The website says two are needed,
but I thought this had been relaxed to
one? Best, Crystal
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Joseph Lazio nominated by Kurt Weiler
Dr. Lazio has an impressive research
productivity, an author or co-author on 65
peer-reviewed publications, with a striking
breadth of research interests. He has published
papers on the radio detection of
extrasolar planets, astrometric observations of
pulsars, probing the interstellar
and intergalactic medium, the structure of the
Galactic center, and searches for radio
transients. In addition, I know that he is
working on a paper concerning the use of radio
astronomical methods for probing the
Earth's ionosphere. He also has been one of the
leading proponents of expanding radio
astronomical observations in non-traditional
directions, arguing forcefully in international
meetings for the potential for searches for radio
transients and astrobiological observations with
radio telescopes. He has presented his work
frequently at international meetings, has served
on the organizing committee for a number of
meetings, and was the lead organizer for the
Joint Discussion "Long Wavelength Astrophysics"
at the recent International Astronomical Union
General Assembly in Prague. Dr. Lazio is also
playing a leading role in developing the next
generation of radio telescopes. NRL was one of
the three institutions involved in the initial
stages of the development of the Low Frequency
Array (LOFAR) for which he led efforts to develop
the scientific case for it and initial efforts to
describe the data management and radio frequency
interference mitigation tasks. More recently,
NRL is participating in the development of the
Long Wavelength Array (LWA). Dr. Lazio leads the
NRL efforts related to radio frequency
interference mitigation and excision techniques,
has been a key participant in the development of
the science case for this instrument, and has
been working recently to utilize our prototype
array (the Long Wavelength Demonstrator Array) to
conduct all-sky radio transient surveys. Finally,
he is a key participant in the international
efforts toward the Square Kilometre Array (SKA).
In the United States, he serves as the
vice chairman of the U.S. SKA Consortium, a group
of universities and research institutes leading
the efforts to develop the SKA. Internationally,
he is a representative to the International SKA
Steering Committee, the group of individuals
charged with overseeing the scientific and
technical development of the SKA, and he serves
as vice chairman of the SKA Science Working
Group. Dr. Kurt W. Weiler
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Daniel Marrone nominated by Mel Wright
Danniel Marrone Jansky Fellow (NRAO), KICP
Fellow (UChicago) Built polarimeter instrument
for the Submillimeter Array. Built HEB receivers,
other components for SAO THz telescope.
Designed novel observations of the Galactic
nuclear black hole and related systems. Other
work in star formation through polarimetry and
THz spectroscopy. Presently commissioning 3mm
receivers for the Sunyaev-Zeldovich Array.
Studying galaxy clusters through
associated observations. Mel Wright
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Upcoming meetings

• July 5, 2008, AP-S-USNC-URSI summer meeting, San
  Diego
• August 7-16, 2008 General Assembly in Chicago
• January ?, 2009, USNC-URSI winter meeting,
  Boulder
• AAS is January 7-10, 2009
• May 31, 2009, AP-S-USNC-URSI summer meeting,
  Charleston
• Will commission J attend?
• July 10, 2010, AP-S-USNC-URSI summer meeting,
  Toronto
• July 3, 2011, AP-S-USNC-URSI summer meeting,
  Spokane

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Chicago General Assembly

• August 7-16, 2008
• Abstract deadline January 31, 2008
• Student paper competition deadline January 31,
  2008, five cash awards
• All student first authors get free lodging
• Double occupancy, worth 1,000
• Young scientist applications
• International URSI makes selection
• USNC-URSI will pay for their travel
• registration fee waived
• No delegate travel support
• Oral session topics already determined

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Chicago GA topics

• Future Large Telescopes I and II
• Aperture and Focal Plane Arrays in Radio
  Astronomy
• Mm and Sub-mm Radio Astronomy I and II
• Radio Frequency Interference, Problems and
  Solutions
• Observatory Reports
• Low Frequency Radio Astronomy and the Ionosphere
• Radio Astronomy in Space and on the Moon
• Signal Processing, Calibration and Imaging in
  Radio Astronomy
• (in memory of Ronald Bracewell)
• Splinter Meetings
• Poster sessions
• Can suggest focused poster session topics
• Pulsars, General Relativity, and Gravitational
  Waves (general lecture)
• Phased Arrays in Radio Astronomy (tutotial)
• Terahertz Technology(A and D)
• Spectrum Management (E)
• Transient Fields and Ultrawide-band Antennas (B)

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Boulder 2009 topics
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Previous seven years of topics TROPOSPHERIC PATH
DELAY CORRECTION D. Woody J.P.V.
Poiares-Baptiste PHYSICAL PROPERTIES AND DYNAMICS
OF THE SOLAR CORONA SOLAR WIND S. Spangler
ADVANCES IN CRYOGENIC COOLING SYSTEMS L.
D'Addario NEW TECHNOLOGY FOR ARRAY TELESCOPES
J. Dreher Z. Popovich Millimeter and
Sub-millimeter Wavelength Atmospheric Radiometry
E. Westwater S. Radford Applications of
the GPS System in Radio Astronomy
J. Romney Millimeter Wavelength Observing
and Calibration Techniques J.
Mangum New Developments In Continuum Radiometers
M. Pospieszalski New
Millimeter and Submillimeter Wavelength
Arrays J. Mangum Next Generation VLBI Data
Transmission Systems J. Romney New VLBI
Techniques and Science Results M. Reid New
Millimeter Wavelength Arrays B.
Butler Surveys at Radio Wavelengths J.
Condon Calibration of Radiometers (Joint with
Commission F) J. Welch New Developments in
Cosmology J. Carlstrom New Science and
Technical Developments from the Green Bank
Telescope Phil Jewell Experimental Challenges
for CMB Polarization Measurements Stephan
Meyer Radio Astronomy Beyond the Epoch of
Reionization Chris Carilli Correlators for
Radio Astronomy Andrew Harris Mirror
Fabrication, Alignment and Metrology for Radio
Telescopes Steve Padin Optics for Wide Field
Imaging Nils Halverson New Developments in
Bolometers for Radio Astronomy Jonas Zmuidzinas
Large Low Frequency Arrays for Radio
Astronomy Rick Perley Spectrum Management in
the 21st Century (joint with Comm-F) Mike
Davis, Karen St.Germain Focal Plane Array
Technology Challenges and new Algorithms for
Interferometric Imaging New Interferometric
Calibration Techniques Radio Astronomy Teaching
Laboratories and Instruments Advances for the
ALMA Napier and Knee Advances In and For
Single Aperture Radio Astronomy Telescopes
Radford and Stairs Affordable Ultra-large
Collecting Area for Wide-field Radio Astronomy
Imaging Weinreb and Veidt Future Directions
for Radio Astronomy Signal Processing Wright
and Carlson Mitigation of Radio Frequency
Interference Liszt and Tapping Polarimetric
Radio Astronomy Techniques and Observations
Bower and Taylor Square Kilometer Array
Patel and Veidt Recent Solar System Radio
and Radar Results Thompson Transient
Astronomical Events Lazio Cosmic Microwave
Background Instruments and Observations Marrone
Designing large N arrays Cordes New
Telescopes, Techniques and Observations Woody
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Other nominations

• Nominations URSI member at large
• Jacqueline Hewitts term has expired
• New candidates?
• International URSI commission J vice chair
• Do we have any candidates
• Nominations USNC-URSI secretary
• Will become President