Address: NASA Herschel Science Center IPAC M/C 100-22 California Institute of Technology 770 South Wilson Avenue Pasadena, CA 91125
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Senior Staff Scientist
Infrared Processing and Analysis Center
California Institute of Technology

Herschel  ESA's Herschel Space Observaotry (fomerly FIRST, the Far-Infrared Space Telescope) was launched with the Planck satellite on an Ariane 5 ECV from Kourou, French Guiana on 14 May 2009.  The 3.5 meter primary mirror is the largest in space to date.  Herschel carries 3 cryogenically-cooled science instruments, for imaging photometry and spectroscopy between 55 and 672 microns. Herschel's current list scientific achievements are collected here.

Since 2005 I work on Herschel's Heterodyne Instrument for the Far Infrared (HIFI), an ultra-high resolution spectrometer for astrochemistry, capable of carrying out studies of astrophysical enviroments with to better than 100 meters/second velocity resolution.  Key components of HIFI have been provided by JPL.  The P.I. institute is the Netherlands Institute for Space Research (SRON) where I worked after my Ph.D. in scientific support of ISO's Short Wavelength Spectrometer.  

Spitzer  NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope (formerly SIRTF, the Space Infrared Telescope Facility) with a 0.85 meter beryllium mirror was launched into space by a Boeing Delta II "heavy" rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida on 25 August 2003.  It carries 3 cryogenically-cooled science instruments for imaging and spectroscopy between 3 and 200 microns, all operated until He³ cryogen depletion in May 2009. Spitzer’s cryogen was projected to last as little as 2.5 years, but the cryostat's efficient design and careful operations enabled it to last more than 5.5 years.  One of the imaging instruments continues to produce science data with partial operation at ambient space temperatures.

I arrived to IPAC at Caltech in 2000 and worked on the InfraRed Spectrograph (IRS) until 2005, through the assembly, integration and testing phases leading up to launch, and then on-orbit scientific commissioning.  The IRS provided moderate resolution spectroscopy between 5 and 40 microns with extremely good sensitivities, and unique imaging at 16 and 22 microns.  The P.I. institute is at Cornell University.

 I joined the Netherlands Institute for Space Research (SRON) after finishing my Ph.D. in 1995, to support the science commissioning and operations of ISO's Short Wavelength Spectrometer (SWS) which exploited new infrared detector technologies, some freshly declassified by the defense industry for science, to cover 2.4 to 45 microns at high spectral resolutions and sensitivities.  ISO's science archive continues to be mined, and science based on SWS observations continues to lead in the number of refereed publications.  I spent the majority of my SWS science support at the ISO Science Operations Centre at Villafranca del Castillo, Spain (VILSPA, now the European Science Astronomy Centre and home to the Herschel Science Centre).  It has been during this time that I gained the unique experience of leading edge space operations for science and first hand witness to the immediate changes in infrared astronomy under staggering volumes of high quality observations flowing into the community.

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