ALMA North American Science Advisory Committee Telecon
Phone Meeting 2006-February 24
This page is available at
https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/ALMA/24Feb06Agenda
- Call date: 2006-02-24 19:00 UT (Friday)
- Call time 14:00 ET or 19:00 UT
- Duration: 1 hr
- USA Number: 877-874-1919
- Outside USA Number: +1 203-320-9891
- Passcode: 185064
- Leader: John Hibbard
Attendance
ANASAC Members (
Attendees in RED):
- John Bally (U. Col.) (2008)
- Andrew Baker (U. Md.) (2008)
- Andrew Blain (Caltech) (2007)
- Crystal Brogan (U. Hawaii) (2008)
- Chris Carilli (NRAO) (2006)
- Dick Crutcher (U. Ill.) (2006)
- Xiaohui Fan (U. Az.) (2007)
- Jason Glenn (U. Col.) (2006)
- Mark Gurwell (CfA, Harvard) (2006)
- Paul Ho (CfA, Harvard) (2008)
- Doug Johnstone (HIA/DAO, Victoria) (2007)
- Lee Mundy (U. Md) (2007)
- Joan Najita (NOAO) (2006)
- Jean Turner (UCLA) (2007)
- Jonathan Williams (U. Hawaii) (2008)
- Christine Wilson (McMaster U.) (2007)
- Mel Wright (UC Berkeley) (2008)
- Min Yun (U. Mass) (2006)
(
Bold = Member of ASAC)
NRAO
- Fred Lo
- Al Wootten
- John Hibbard
- Darrel Emerson
Agenda
1) Old Business (Hibbard)
Agenda and
Minutes of 06 January 2006 meeting. Action items from last time:
- ACTION: Put "Future NAASC Workshops" on Agenda for next meeting. ANASAC members think of topics. DONE--see below
- ACTION: ANASAC members should email suggestions for new members to jhibbard@nrao.edu ASAP. Also consider who you want for Chair. DONE--see below
- ACTION: C. Wilson to summarize ASAC recommendations before next ANASA Done--sent via email 2/22/2006
- ACTION: add Grants Program discussion to this months agenda. DONE--see below
2) ANASAC membership turnover/new members (Crutcher)
- Terms expiring in February, 2006
- Chris Carilli (NRAO) Member of ASAC
- Richard Crutcher (U.Ill) current Chair
- Jason Glenn (UColorado)
- Mark Gurwell (CfA)
- Joan Najita (NOAO)
- Min Yun (UMass)
- Replacments (Terms expiring in February, 2009) [Partial list]
- Chris Carilli (NRAO) X-Gal/high-z Member of ASAC
- Terry Herter (Cornell) Instrumentation/LAT
- Kelsey Johnson (UVa) X-Gal/Star clusters
- ANASAC and others suggested names to F.K. Lo; replacements have been solicited.
- ANASAC Chair?
3) Project News (Wootten)
- General View of AOS construction
- More construction photos available at http://www.alma.nrao.edu/almanews/almagallery.html
- NA ALMA Cost Reviews:
- Beckwith chaired delta-cost review (extra costs associated with having two antenna contractors) on Jan 26 2006.
- Don Hartill (Cornell) chaired in-depth NSF review of N.Am part of ALMA cn Jan 30-Feb1 2006.
- New NA ALMA postdoc - Tony Remijan started in Jan2006. Rob Reid (NRC) to start in the Fall. One other offer out.
4) ASAC Report (Carilli)
- Agenda of this Tuesday's (Feb21) ASAC Telecon
- C. Wilson sent email summary of response to charges on Wednesday Feb22.
5) NAASC (Hibbard)
- P. Vanden Bout stepped down as NAASC Head on Jan 1 2006.
- A. Russell is Acting Head of NAASC
- J. Hibbard is Acting Head of NA ARC
- C.Brogan starts at NRAO/NAASC on Wednesday, March 1 2006.
- New NAASC staffing plan available at http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/NAASCops_v0.2.doc. Includes staffing ramp-up and budget for 2006-2013. Made available for NA cost reviews, but not totally blessed. Plan to hold internal review (including Canadians) before summer.
- Discussions with Sean Dougherty & Jim Hesser (NRC) about Canadian involvement in NA ARC. Several have joined monthly NAASC organizational meetings. Will probably get together at June AAS to discuss further joint efforts.
- NAASC members will be involved in test of pipeline and offline software subsystems in the coming months. Will also participate in user interface "focus group" end of March in Socorro.
- EPO-coordination effort underway with JAO. Desire executive-neutral ALMA presence at international meetings (IAU, Madrid). Executive-flavored presence at regional meetings can use this material as starting point.
- JAO Ops coordination meeting planned for mid-march. 1st antenna due at OSF Q1 2007. 2nd Q4 2007. Thereafter 1 every 2mo. So plan to hire 6 ops staff by end of 2006:
- Head of Admin (Q2)
- Head of Science Operations (Q2)
- Head of Technical Services (Q2)
- Head of Human Resources (Q2)
- 3 S/W Engineers (Q3)
- 2 array operators (Q3)
- Transporter supervisor (Q3)
- Warehouse supervisor (Q3)
- admin assist't (Q3)
6) NAASC Grants (Hibbard)
At the June 2005 f2f meeting, the ANASAC expressed an interest in having
the
NAASC fund a grants program to fund work at the universities on
ALMA related projects. My impression was that this would be ~few
months work for faculty, postdocs or grad students on work to support
ALMA science goals and generate excitement about the project
(e.g., generating ALMA simulations; demonstrating ALMA observing
modes; illustrating potential results from DSRPs); please correct me if I am wrong.
This could be tied to an issue that came up at the January ALMA Town Meeting,
where there was some discussion about supporting students work on mm/submm
projects prior to ALMA operations. We have decided to start a
pilot project in 2006, contingent on the eventual NRAO operations budget.
We would like the ANASAC to consider how to define, solicit, select, and
monitor such projects. Much of this should probably happen
offline. One condition on the grants would be
that the ALMA Science IPT would have to have considerable input
into which projects are selected.
7) ALMA Meetings & Workshops (Hibbard/Wootten)
- Talks from Jan2006 AAS ALMA Town Meeting are on-line at https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/ALMA/AasTalks. New brochure at http://www.alma.nrao.edu/ALMAHandoutJan06.pdf
- Z-Machine meeting (Jan 13-14 2006 in Charlottesville) went great. Nice job Andrew Baker and SOC. Program, pictures, and pdfs of talks/posters available online at http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/zmachines/. Would like to hold similar (N~70) meetings at NAASC each year. Future workshop suggestions:
- Something joint with Herschel in early 2007 (but probably in Pasadena)
- Phase-transfer calibration (suggested by A. Wootten), but there will be a meeting on this in ...Fall 2006? in Cambridge?
- Astrochemistry/biology - but see bioastronomy meeting plans below.
- J.Williams suggests disks - either protostellar/protoplanetary or accretion disks in general
- other ANASAC suggestions?
- timeframe: should avoid NRAO 50th (March? June? Oct?) and Bioastronomy (if it happens).
- Making the Most of the Great Observatories, 22-24 May, Hilton, Pasadena
- NEED ALMA Speaker 10min presentation, participate in 1 hr panel discussion.
- There will be an ALMA Special Session at the Calgary AAS meeting. Theme: Imaging Star Formation in the Cosmos with ALMA (see description at end)
- 1.5hrs + poster session, to be held on Monday June 5th (overlap with CASA)
- Speakers:
- Doug Johnstone (NRC-HIA): Star formation in our galaxy: the need for ALMA
- Jean L. Turner (UCLA): Imaging star-forming gas in nearby galaxies
- Andrew W. Blain (Caltech): Imaging high-z starburst galaxies
- Will have associated poster session (should we standardize ALMA poster presentations like LSST at Jan AAS?)
- IAU XXVI General Assembly Prague, 14-25 August 2006. There will be an ALMA booth near ESO and NRAO displays. Sessions of Particular ALMA Interest:
- We (NRAO-CV) has been asked to host the next Bioastronomy meeting in 2007. See email from A.Boss at end.
- Other Meetings of interest listed at http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/alma_meetings.shtml
8) Other Items (add them here as you wish)
9) Next Meeting
Date of next phone meeting According to our current schedule the next one should be on:
2006-4-28 18:00 UT (Friday)
Supporting Material:
Description of ALMA Special Session at Calgary AAS meeting:
Title: Imaging Star Formation in the Cosmos with ALMA
The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) will provide quantum
leaps in improvement compared to existing facilities, enabling
entirely new science at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths.
Star formation in the Milky Way will be revealed with a hundred-fold
increase in sensitivity and resolution, making it possible to see
evidence of protoplanets in protostellar disks and to measure disk
chemical differentiation. Star-forming molecular gas in nearby
galaxies will be imaged with high sensitivity at parsec-scale
resolution, providing new insight into the structure and evolution
of galaxies. Multiple transitions of molecular and atomic gas will
be imaged in distant galaxies back to the era of recombination,
providing information on the chemistry, structure, formation and
evolution of the earliest galaxies.
This special session will feature review talks to highlight ALMA's
capabilities and scientific potential in these three key research
areas. We also invite poster contributions.
Speakers & Topic:
* Doug Johnstone (NRC-HIA): Star formation in our galaxy: the need for ALMA
* Jean L. Turner (UCLA): Imaging star-forming gas in nearby galaxies
* Andrew W. Blain (Caltech): Imaging high-z starburst galaxies
Accepting additional contributed oral presentations? No
Organizing a concurrent session of contributed poster papers? Yes
Email from A. Boss to F. Lo re: bioastronomy meeting
Dear Fred,
I am the incoming (2006-) President of IAU Commission 51 on
Bioastronomy. The current President, Karen Meech, and I are
working on plans for the next Bioastronomy meeting, last held
in Iceland in 2004. See: http://www.bioastronomy2004.os.is/
These meetings are held every three years, so we are planning
the 2007 meeting now. We would like to hold the next meeting in
the USA, and the idea occurred to us that NRAO might be interested
in hosting the meeting in Charlottesville/Green Bank as a way
to make closer links between bioastronomy/astrobiology and the
current NRAO facilities as well as upcoming facilities, i.e.,
ALMA, that are important for studying the origin of life through
detecting molecules and planet-forming disks in regions of star
formation.
Bioastronomy meetings typically attract about 200 participants.
If you think that there is a chance that NRAO would be willing
to consider hosting the next Bioastronomy meeting, we would be
interested in hearing from you, or from whoever you think we
should discuss this with at your institution.
Best wishes,
Alan
cc: Karen Meech
--
JohnHibbard - 21 Feb 2006