Leads
LDT Leads are responsible for the overall operation of the facility. Please direct high-level inquiries to these individuals, who will pass along questions to the appropriate staff members as needed.
Dr. Stephen Levine - Astronomer, LDT Scientist, Director of Education
Dr. Kyler Kuehn - Director of Technology
Operations Staff
Operations Staff are responsible for the safe operation of the telescope at night. Remote observers should contact their operator(s) no less than a full day ahead of their observing session to confirm when and how they will be in contact. The semester science calendar contains the list of operators for a given night. The night operations staff may be collectively contacted at (ldtoperator at lowell dot edu).
Dr. José Fernandez – LDT Night Operations Manager
Beck Maier – LDT Operator
Ishara Nisley – LDT Operator
Benjamin Shafransky – LDT Operator
Cecilia Siqueiros – LDT Operator
Instrument & Engineering Staff
The Instrument and Engineering Staff comprise the LDT day crew. These individuals keep the LDT running smoothly through regular monitoring, maintenance, and upgrading of all telescope and facility systems.
Lowell Instrument Group:
Dr. Ryan Hamilton - Head of Instrumentation
Tom Bida - Senior Instrument Scientist
Michael Collins - Electronics Specialist
Ben Hardesty - Instrument Scientist
Ben Reed – Instrument Specialist
Dyer Lytle - Software Engineer
Thomas Kelley - Research Assistant, Optics and Photonics Applications Laboratory
LDT Engineering Group:
Frank Cornelius - Engineering Manager
Khristian Jones - Associate Electrical Engineer
Dr. Georgi Mandushev - Research Scientist and Facility Software Support
Mike Sweaton - LDT Electronic Engineer
Jake Tiegs - Mechanical Technician
Science Support
The LDT provides a Support Astronomer for assisting with observation planning, first-night observing support, and general questions about the facility. The LDT does not operate in 'queue' or other non-classical observing modes at this time, and the Support Astronomer cannot serve as the observer's proxy during assigned nights.
Dr. Timothy Ellsworth-Bowers - Support Astronomer
Instrument Leads
Each of the instruments available for use at LDT has a main contact person. For Facility Instruments, observers are encouraged to carefully read through the instrument manual, and contact the instrument lead in instances of technical challenges or needed changes in the manual. The use of Visitor and PI instruments must be coordinated through the listed instrument lead, as the LDT staff do not directly support these instruments.
LDT Facility Instruments:
LMI (Large Monolithic Imager) - Dr. Phil Massey
DeVeny Optical Spectrograph - Tom Bida
NIHTS (Near IR High Throughput Spectrograph) - Dr. Nick Moskovitz
Visitor / PI Instruments:
EXPRES - Dr. Debra Fischer (Yale) / Dr. John Michael Brewer (SFSU)
POETS - Dr. Stephen Levine (Lowell)
QWSSI - Dr. Gerard van Belle (Lowell)
RIMAS (coming soon) - Dr. Alexander Kutyrev (GSFC/UMd)
Logistics Contacts
The Lowell Observatory IT and Business Office Staff can assist with issues relevant to observing at the LDT.
IT issues - John Kullman, or IT .at. lowell.edu
Lodging - Dr. José Fernandez
General - Catie Blazek
If you want to contact one of these people, try constructing their email as "first initial + last name at lowell dot edu". If that does not work, email (tac at lowell dot edu) and we will help you reach the right person.