Collaboration Organization
On this page you will find information about the organization of the Rubin Observatory LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration (DESC).
- Member Lists
- Management Team
- Working Groups, Topical Teams, and Task Forces
- Collaboration Council (CC)
- Other internal collaboration structures and roles
- Operations committees and personnel
- Liaisons
Member Lists
Management Team
The DESC Management Team, which comprises the Spokesperson, Deputy Spokesperson, the Coordinators, and Operations Manager, is responsible for managing the collaboration’s scientific activities to maximize the scientific return on the funding agencies’ investment in LSST, focusing on dark energy (the DESC’s core mission) and, more broadly, the fundamental physics of the Universe with LSST data. The Management Team is defined in the LSST DESC Governance Plan.
Inquiries of the DESC Spokesperson team (Spokesperson and Deputy Spokesperson) can be sent to: lsst-desc-spokesperson [at] slac.stanford.edu
.
- Spokesperson: Katrin Heitmann (ANL)
- Deputy Spokesperson: Renée Hlozek (Toronto)
- Analysis Coordinator: Eric Gawiser (Rutgers)
- Deputy Analysis Coordinator, static probes: Chihway Chang (University of Chicago)
- Deputy Analysis Coordinator, transients: Gautham Narayan (UIUC)
- Computing and Simulations Coordinator: Jim Chiang (SLAC)
- Deputy Computing and Simulations Coordinator: Joe Zuntz (Edinburgh)
- Technical Coordinator: Pat Burchat (Stanford)
- Deputy Technical Coordinator: Keith Bechtol (University of Wisconsin)
- Operations Manager: Seth Digel (SLAC)
- Deputy Operations Manager: Heather Kelly (SLAC)
Spokesperson team emerita: Rachel Mandelbaum (CMU), Pat Burchat (Stanford, deputy), Phil Marshall (SLAC), Eric Gawiser (Rutgers, deputy), Rachel Bean (Cornell), Jeff Newman (Pitt, deputy), Bhuvnesh Jain (U. Pennsylvania), Steve Kahn (SLAC), Gregory Dubois-Felsmann (IPAC, deputy)
Working Groups, Topical Teams, and Task Forces
Working groups are the main organizational structure within DESC. The following diagram illustrates the overall working group structure, while the Coordinators and co-conveners for the working groups are listed below.
Technical Working Groups
Coordinator: Pat Burchat (Stanford)
- Sensor Anomalies (SAWG): Merlin Fisher-Levine (Rubin Obs.), Claire Juramy (LPNHE/IN2P3)
- Photometric Corrections (PC): Sylvie Dagoret-Campagne (IJCLab/IN2P3), Douglas Tucker (FNAL)
- Blending (BL): James Buchanan (LLNL), Cyrille Doux (IN2P3/CNRS)
- Point-spread Function (PSF): Arun Kannawadi (Princeton), Morgan Schmitz (Université Cote d’Azur)
Computing and Simulations Working Groups
Coordinator: Jim Chiang (SLAC)
- Cosmological and Survey Simulations (CSS): Bryce Kalmbach (UW), Josh Meyers (LLNL)
- Computing (CO): Joanne Bogart (SLAC), Michael Wood-Vasey (Pittsburgh)
- Science Release and Validation: Javier Sanchez (FNAL), Nacho Sevilla (CIEMAT)
Analysis Working Groups
Coordinator: Eric Gawiser (Rutgers)
- Weak Lensing (WL): Bob Armstrong (LLNL), Tilman Tröster (Edinburgh)
- Large Scale Structure (LSS): Boris Leistedt (Imperial College London/NYU), Andrina Nicola (Princeton)
- Time Domain (TD): Bruno Sanchez (Duke), Mark Sullivan (Southampton)
- Clusters (CL): Yuanyuan Zhang (Texas A&M), Camille Avestruz (U of Michigan)
- Modeling and Combined Probes (MCP): Tassia Ferreira (LIneA), Danielle Leonard (Newcastle)
- Photometric Redshifts (PZ): Shahab Joudaki (Waterloo), Markus Rau (ANL)
- Observing Strategy (OS): Humna Awan (U of Michigan), Saurabh Jha (Rutgers)
- External Synergies: David Alonso (Oxford), Jeff Newman (Pittsburgh)
- Dark Matter: Annika Peter (Ohio State), Yao-Yuan Mao (Rutgers)
Topical Teams
Topical teams are informally-defined groups that capture focused activity beyond the scope of a single project, within or across DESC working groups. Teams that have been broadly advertised within DESC are listed here:
- Alerts topical team co-led by Alex Kim (LBNL), Robert Knop (LBNL)
- Bayesian Pipelines team co-led by François Lanusse (AIM/INSU), Michael Schneider (Livermore)
- Beyond wCDM topical team led by Georgios Valogiannis (Harvard)
- Blending Toolkit team co-led by Ismael Mendoza (U of Michigan), Thomas Sainrat (APC-Paris Diderot)
- Blind Analysis topical team led by Jonathan Blazek (Northeastern)
- Cluster Weak Lensing Mass Modeling topical team co-led by Celine Combet (LPSC/IN2P3), Marina Ricci (LMU-Munich)
- Core Cosmology Library (CCL) topical team led by David Alonso (Oxford)
- Difference imaging analysis (DIA) topical team co-led by Ben Racine (CPPM/IN2P3), Michael Wood-Vasey (Pittsburgh)
- Higher Order Statistics (HOS) topical team co-led by Joachim Harnois-Déraps (Newcastle), Jia Liu (Kavli IPMU)
- imSim topical team led by Chris Walter (Duke)
- Intrinsic Alignments topical team co-led by Christos Georgiou (Utrecht University), Leonel Medina Varela (UT Dallas)
- RAIL topical team currently co-led by Eric Charles (SLAC), Alex Malz (GCCL@RUB)
- Strong Lensing topical team co-led by Simon Birrer (Stanford), Yashar Hezaveh (Montreal)
- Supernova Machine Learning topical team led by Jamie Dumayne (Lancaster), Chad Schafer (CMU)
- TJPCov topical team co-led by Carlos Garcia-Garcia (Oxford), Felipe Andrade-Oliveira (Michigan)
Task Forces
- Commissioning (COM): Chris Walter (Duke)
Collaboration Council (CC)
As defined in the Governance Plan, the Collaboration Council represents the Full Members of the Collaboration, facilitates discussion of collaboration-wide issues, and has overall responsibility for LSST DESC policies and procedures.
Council members are elected for 2-year terms, with ten new members elected each year. Their current year is given in parentheses after their institution. The CC elects its own two co-chairs, each year.
- co-Chair: Camille Avestruz (U. of Michigan, 2)
- co-Chair: Antonia Sierra Villarreal (ANL, 1)
- Catarina Alves (UCL, 2)
- Keith Bechtol (Wisconsin, 2)
- Jonathan Blazek (Northeastern, 2)
- Céline Combet (LPSC/IN2P3, 1)
- Andrew Connolly (U. of Washington, 1)
- Emille Ishida (LPC/IN2P3, 2)
- Mike Jarvis (Penn, 1)
- Heather Kelly (SLAC, 1)
- Rick Kessler (U. Chicago, 1)
- François Lanusse (AIM/INSU, 1)
- Anja von der Linden (Stony Brook, 1)
- Anais Möller (Swinburne, 1)
- Andrina Nicola (Princeton, 1)
- Marina Ricci (LMU-Munich, 2)
- Aaron Roodman (SLAC, 2)
- Eli Rykoff (SLAC, 2)
- Javier Sanchez (FNAL, 2)
- Michael Troxel (Duke, 2)
Other internal collaboration structures and roles
Advisory Board
As defined in the Governance Plan, the members of the Advisory Board provide advice to and work with the management team to help define policy issues as they arise.
- Chair: Gary Bernstein (UPenn)
- Pierre Antilogus (LPNHE/IN2P3)
- Richard Dubois (SLAC)
- Catherine Heymans (Edinburgh)
- Rachel Mandelbaum (CMU)
Membership Committee
As outlined in the Governance Plan, the Membership Committee implements the review of applications for new Members and Full Members, and for new Builders, as described in the Membership Policy and Builder Status Policy, respectively.
- Chair: Mariana Penna-Lima (UnB - Brasília/LIneA)
- Joanne Bogart (SLAC)
- Alexandre Boucaud (APC/IN2P3)
- Heather Kelly (SLAC)
- Daniel Perrefort (Pittsburgh)
- Mark Sullivan (Southampton)
- Georgios Valogiannis (Harvard)
- Tianqing Zhang (CMU)
Publication Board
As outlined in the Governance Plan, the Publication Board oversees the logistics of the publication process for all DESC publications as outlined in the Publication Policy.
- Publication Manager: Douglas Clowe (Ohio U.)
- Deputy Publication Manager: Alex Drlica-Wagner (Fermilab/Chicago)
- Phil Bull (Queen Mary)
- Mi Dai (Johns Hopkins University)
- Emille Ishida (LPC-IN2P3)
- Ofer Lahav (UCL)
- Constance Mahony (German Centre for Cosmological Lensing)
- Markus Rau (ANL)
- Marcelle Soares-Santos (U of Michigan)
- Eric Gawiser (Rutgers, ex-officio)
Speakers Bureau
As outlined in the Governance Plan, the Speakers Bureau is intended to be a resource to DESC members, adding value to presentations by Collaboration members and helping to improve the standing of the entire Collaboration. The specific roles and duties of the Speakers Bureau are defined in the Speakers Bureau Policy. The DESC Speakers Bureau welcomes requests from conference organizers for invited talks on behalf of the collaboration and it can be reached by email at lsst-desc-speakers-bureau@slac.stanford.edu.
- Co-Chair: Lluís Galbany (IEEC-CSIC Barcelona)
- Co-Chair: Tesla Jeltema (UC Santa Cruz)
- Adam Amara (University of Portsmouth)
- Jonathan Blazek (Northeastern University)
- Elisa Chisari (Utrecht University)
- Tassia Ferreira (LIneA)
- Bryce Kalmbach (University of Washington)
- Simona Murgia (UC Irvine)
- Eusebio Sanchez (CIEMAT Madrid)
- Michael Strauss (Princeton)
Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Committee
As described in the Governance Plan, the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Committee is charged by the Collaboration Council to proactively ensure that the collaboration is fostering an inclusive environment while promoting equity and diversity within the collaboration. The full charge, maintained by the Collaboration Council, can be found here.
- Co-Chair: Boris Leistedt (Imperial College London/NYU)
- Co-Chair: Matt Wiesner (Benedictine)
- Jim Annis (Fermilab)
- Keith Bechtol (Wisconsin)
- Ian Dell’Antonio (Brown)
- Eske Pedersen (Harvard)
- Marina Ricci (LMU-Munich)
- Yuanyuan Zhang (Texas A&M)
Meetings Committee
The Meetings Committee is convened by the Spokesperson to organize collaboration meetings and hack/sprint weeks.
- Co-Chair: Jonathan Blazek (Northeastern)
- Co-Chair: Andrew Hearin (ANL)
- François Lanusse (Hack/Sprint Co-Coordinator, AIM/INSU)
- Ismael Mendoza (Hack/Sprint Co-Coordinator, U of Michigan)
- Joanne Bogart (Remote Participation Coordinator, SLAC)
- Katrin Heitmann (ex officio, ANL)
- Temporary LOC/SOC representatives from most recent meeting: Keith Bechtol (Wisconsin), Eske Pedersen (Harvard)
- Temporary LOC/SOC representatives from upcoming meeting: Chihway Chang (University of Chicago), Alex Drlica-Wagner (Fermilab/Chicago), Rick Kessler (University of Chicago)
Junior DESC Organization (JuDO)
JuDO works to represent and advance the interests of people in the DESC who have non-tenured, non-tenure-track, or equivalent non-permanent positions.
- Co-leads: Claire-Alice Hébert (Stanford), Kartheik Iyer (Toronto)
Ombudspersons
As defined in the LSST DESC Professional Conduct Policies, the role of the Ombudspersons is to provide informal, confidential, nonjudgmental, impartial, and independent advice and arrange mediation for DESC members for the purposes of dispute resolution.
- Cecile Roucelle (APC/IN2P3)
- Ian Dell’Antonio (Brown)
Operations committees and personnel
Operations Committee
As mentioned in the Governance Plan and defined in more detail in the Operations Management Plan, the LSST DESC Operations Committee is responsible for determining and prioritizing LSST DESC’s immediate and future operations needs, recommending ways to implement the prioritized operations needs, and assessing the progress and performance of funded operations activities. It is convened by, and reports to, the DESC Spokesperson.
- Operations Manager: Seth Digel (SLAC, Chair)
- IN2P3 representative: Eric Aubourg (APC/IN2P3)
- UK representative: Catherine Heymans (Edinburgh)
- US university representatives: Rachel Mandelbaum (CMU), Steve Ritz (U.C. Santa Cruz)
- US national lab representative: Alex Drlica-Wagner (Fermilab)
- Ex officio:
- Deputy Spokesperson: Renée Hlozek
- Analysis Coordinator: Eric Gawiser
- Computing and Simulations Coordinator: Jim Chiang
- Technical Coordinator: Pat Burchat
- Observing: Emmanuel Gangler, Heather Kelly, Katrin Heitmann
International Resources Committee
The purpose of DESC’s International Resources Committee (IRC) is to coordinate and formalize operations contributions from across DESC’s international partners.
- Chair: David MacFarlane (SLAC)
- DOE (US): Kathy Turner
- IN2P3 (France): Vincent Poireau
- STFC (UK): George Madden
Operations Staff
The DESC Pipeline Scientists (PS) and Computing Infrastructure personnel (CI) are committed to development of the collaboration’s mission-critical software and datasets.
- David Adams (BNL) - CI
- Michel Aguena (LAPP/IN2P3) - PS
- Felipe Andrade-Oliveira (Michigan) - PS
- Bob Armstrong (LLNL) - PS
- Matt Becker (ANL) - PS
- Joanne Bogart (SLAC) - CI
- Eric Charles (SLAC) - PS
- Jim Chiang (SLAC) - CI
- Ben Clifford (ANL) - CI
- Tom Glanzman (SLAC) - CI
- Philippe Gris (LPC/IN2P3) - PS
- Mike Jarvis (Penn) - PS
- Rémy Joseph (Stockholm) - PS
- Arun Kannawadi (Princeton) - PS
- Heather Kelly (SLAC) - CI
- Rick Kessler (U. Chicago) - PS
- Robert Knop (LBNL) - PS
- Patricia Larsen (ANL) - CI
- Huan Lin (FNAL) - PS
- Josh Meyers (LLNL) - PS
- Marc Paterno (FNAL) - PS
- James Perry (Edinburgh) - CI
- Marina Ricci (LMU-Munich) - PS
- Eli Rykoff (SLAC) - PS
- Javier Sanchez (FNAL) - PS
- Sam Schmidt (UC Davis) - PS
- Nacho Sevilla (CIEMAT) - CI
- Erin Sheldon (BNL) - PS
- Sandro Dias Pinto Vitenti (UEL-LIneA) - PS
- Joe Zuntz (Edinburgh) - PS
Liaisons
A set of active DESC members and external project leaders have agreed to serve as liaisons for DESC with key resources and precursor and concurrent surveys.
Rubin Observatory Project and Facility Operations
- Director: Zeljko Ivezic (UW/Rubin Obs.)
- Chief Scientist: Tony Tyson (U.C. Davis)
- Data Management: Leanne Guy (Rubin Obs.), Robert Lupton (Princeton), Wil O’Mullane (Rubin Obs.)
- Observing Strategy: Lynne Jones (U Washington)
- Systems Integration and Commissioning: Chuck Claver (Rubin Obs.), Sandrine Thomas (Rubin Obs.)
- Education & Public Outreach: Lauren Corlies (Rubin Obs.)
- Facility Operations: Phil Marshall (SLAC/Rubin Obs.)
High-performance computing resources
- ANL: Salman Habib (ANL)
- IN2P3: Dominique Boutigny (LAPP/IN2P3)
- NERSC: Debbie Bard (LBNL)
- UK computing: George Beckett (Edinburgh)
Other projects
- CMB-S4: David Alonso (Oxford)
- DESI: Jeff Newman (Pittsburgh)
- Euclid: Jason Rhodes (JPL)
- HSC: Michael Strauss (Princeton)
- PFS: Michael Strauss (Princeton)
- Roman: Julie McEnery (Goddard Space Flight Center)
- Simons Observatory: David Alonso (Oxford)
- 4MOST/TiDES: Mark Sullivan (Southampton)