LUNAR - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor at the Centre of Astronomy
Abhirup Datta (Collaborator) is an Assistant Professor at the Centre of Astronomy of the Indian Institute of Technology, Indore. His expertise is in cm and meter wavelength radio observations with various telescopes like JVLA, GMRT, GBT algorithm development. His PhD thesis focused on foreground removal from cosmological 21-cm observations. He participates in the calibration strategy and software pipeline development. No funding is requested for this Collaborator.
Abraham Loeb (Co-I) is Professor of Astronomy and Director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at Harvard University. Previously, he was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. He received a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and Kennedy Prize from the Hebrew University. Loeb has published over 340 papers and pioneered theoretical studies of the cosmic 21-cm signal that we seek to detect with DARE. Loeb is a senior member of the Science Modeling team. He leads the effort to interpret the DARE spectrum based upon a suite of models of the physics in the Dark Ages.
Job Titles:
- Research Fellow at the Institute for Theory
Anastasia Fialkov (Co-I) is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Theory and Computation at Harvard University and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Dr. Fialkov is a part of the science modeling team. She will participate in all aspects of theory development for DARE science. She will work on developing models, including galaxy formation, ionization, heating and metal enrichment mechanisms. The goal would be to estimate range of astrophysical parameters relevant for DARE science.
David Rapetti (Co-I) is a NASA Program Senior Fellow at the University of Colorado Boulder and at AMES Research Center. Dr. Rapetti will develop the mission's global 21-cm signal extraction pipeline based on a Bayesian framework and a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) analysis, which self-consistently and simultaneously accounts for foreground and instrumental systematic uncertainties. He will also lead the use of Bayesian evidence calculations to further distinguish between the currently allowed models of the first luminous objects at end of the Dark Ages and beginning of the Cosmic Dawn as well as exotic physics impacting the 21-cm spectrum at this early, unexplored cosmic epoch.
Dayton Jones (Co-I) is a cm and meter wavelength radio astronomer. He has been PI of radio tracking of CASSINI. Dayton has conducted extensive research on the Space Interferometry Mission and Lunar telescope design studies at JPL. He co-leads the instrument calibration and data analysis in DARE project.
Job Titles:
- Principal Investigator
- Professor of Astrophysics at U. Colorado
- Vice President Emeritus for Academic Affairs and Research for the University of Colorado
Jack Burns (PI) is Professor of Astrophysics at U. Colorado (CU) and Director of the NASA/NLSI Lunar University Network for Astrophysics Research (LUNAR). He has 25 years of leadership experience, most recently as Vice President for Academic Affairs & Research for the CU System, which has a budget of over $2B/yr. He chaired the NASA Advisory Council's Science Committee, has received NASA's Exceptional public Service Medal, and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Burns has published more than 360 papers. He has 35 years of experience in observational radio astronomy, and performed some of the first science observations with the Very Large Array telescope. He has been a leading proponent of and worked on designs for lunar farside low frequency telescopes for over 2 decades.
DARE is led by Jack Burns, Professor of Astrophysics and Vice President Emeritus for Academic Affairs and Research for the University of Colorado. Burns is an elected Fellow of the AAAS and APS, and received NASA's Exceptional public Service Medal in 2010. The science team includes members who first modeled the global radio signal from the Cosmic Dawn, the PI of the ground-based DARE pathfinder (EDGES), and members with extensive flight mission experience. The team has decades of experience with centimeter and meter wavelength observations.
Jonathan Pritchard (Collaborator) is a Senior Lecturer in Astrostatistics at Imperial College, London. Previously, he was a Hubble Fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and received his Ph.D. from Caltech. He has published over 20 papers, including some of the first theoretical research on the global 21-cm signal, making theoretical calculations of the fluctuations and constraints from experiments such as DARE. Pritchard and Loeb provided the "turning points" framework that we are considering to test with DARE. Pritchard will support the development of MCMC signal extraction code. No funding is requested for this Collaborator.
Jordan Mirocha (Co-I) is a Postdoctoral Scholar at University of California Los Angeles. He is part of the Science Modeling Team. Dr. Mirocha will provide assistance with DARE's signal extraction pipeline (PERSES), which he co-developed, and continue to maintain, and develop the ARES code, which will be used to constrain theoretical models of galaxy formation using DARE data.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor at Arizona State University
Judd Bowman (Co-I) is Assistant Professor at Arizona State University, following a Hubble Fellowship at Caltech. He is PI of EDGES, the ground-based pathfinder for DARE, and is Project Scientist for the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA). He is also on the Executive Board for the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA). He received the NASA Administrator's Award, Honor Award, Group Achievement Award, and two Software Awards for the Ground Data System for MER. Bowman is uniquely qualified to co-lead the DARE Calibration and Instrument Validation team. He is responsible for perfecting the DARE calibration strategy using computer modeling and ground-based precursors. He is also a member of Instrument & Data Analyses team.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor at University of Michigan
Justin Kasper (Co-I) is an Associate Professor at University of Michigan. His research interest include low frequency EM instruments in space. He is PI of Solar Probe Plus and SWEAP. He is interested in understanding the forces that lead to solar flares and the solar wind, a stream of particles heated to millions of degrees in the Sun's atmosphere, or corona. He is also Co-I of Solar Orbiter and RPW. Justin is also project scientist for LRO, CRaTER, WIND and DSCOVR. He leads the science enhancement option of DARE project in identifying solar and planetary radio transients.
Job Titles:
- Director of Science at NASA Ames Research Center
Michael Bicay (Collaborator) is Director of Science at NASA Ames Research Center (ARC). He was a NASA Headquarters Program Scientist for a variety of radio and infrared astronomy missions for six years. He was also on the science staff at JPL and a member of the Project Office for the Spitzer Space Telescope. He has extensive experience with radio and infrared observations of galaxies and galaxy clusters. Dr. Bicay's primary role will be to ensure that DARE receives appropriate institutional support from NASA Ames, working in collaboration with the Center's Director for Programs/ Projects. No funding is requested for this Collaborator.
Job Titles:
- Research Associate at the University of Colorado Boulder
Raul Monsalve (Co-I) is a Research Associate at the University of Colorado Boulder. His research interests include experimental cosmology and low frequency radio astronomy. As a member of the EDGES team, he has extensive experience with the design, implementation, and operation of ground-based global 21-cm experiments, as well as with their calibration and data analysis. Dr. Monsalve will contribute to DARE by producing the measurement model corresponding to the foregrounds and instrument, including their uncertainties.
Job Titles:
- Scientist and Research Engineer at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory
Richard Bradley (Co-I) is a Scientist and Research Engineer at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. He is an Associate Editor of the journal Radio Science and Chair of a Commission of the U. S. National Committee for the International Union of Radio Science. He is the co-PI of the Precision Array for Probing the Epoch of Reionization (PAPER) project and member of the Executive Committee for LUNAR. Bradley's extensive experience in radio engineering and antenna design is utilized as the co-leader of the DARE Calibration and Instrument Validation Team.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor at UCLA