National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Scientists

Lorella Angelini received the degree of Laurea in Physics from the University of Rome in 1985. From February to December of 1986, she worked as observatory controller at the EXOSAT Observatory at ESOC/ESA in Darmstadt, Germany. She was a Research Fellow and Duty Scientist from 1987 until 1991 at ESTEC/ESA in Noordwijk, The Netherlands. Her research interests center on timing and spectral proprieties of galactic X-ray sources and, in particular, X-ray pulsars. Dr. Angelini joined the HEASARC in January 1991 where she contributes to the development and support of the analysis software used by the database on-line service.

Paul Barrett holds a Ph.D. in Physics from Louisiana State University. His postdoctoral studies were spent in South Africa at the University of Cape Town and South African Astronomical Observatory in Cape Town, and Universities Space Research Association at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Research interests include cyclotron emission from Magnetic Cataclysmic Variables (MCVs), photopolarimetry and gamma-ray observation of MCVs, and polarimetry of CVs, Wolf-Rayet stars, and SN 1987A. Dr. Barrett joined the HEASARC in October 1990 where he works with the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory and is responsible for NASA's Astrophysics Data System, for archiving of gamma-ray data, and for developing both a graphical user interface to XSPEC and a (new) portable BROWSE.

Steve Drake received his BS in Astrophysics at the University of Edinburgh in 1973, and his Ph.D. in Astronomy at UCLA in 1980. He has subsequently worked at JILA (U. Colorado) and the SMM Project at Goddard Space Flight Center, before joining the HEASARC in January 1991. His research interests are primarily in the area of galactic, particularly stellar, astronomy, and he has studied stars all over the HR Diagram from O stars to M (and S) stars, and dwarf stars to supergiant stars, and (even) the Sun. If pressed, he may admit that RS CVn stars and magnetic Bp stars are his favorites. He has also tried to apply a multi-wavelength approach in much of his work, and has made or used observations of stars at radio, optical, UV, and X-ray energies. At the HEASARC, Dr. Drake has been working on assembling a library of plasma emission codes, as well as updating and adding to the database Einstein SSS, MPC, and OGS spectra and light-curves.

Ian M. George received his BS from the University of Birmingham, UK, in 1984 and his Ph.D. from the University of Leicester, UK, in 1988. From 1988 until 1991 he held an SERC Postdoctoral Research Associate position at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, UK. His research interests have centered on the study of the high energy (UV to Gamma ray) spectral emissions from Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). Much of his work has been observational and involved the reduction and interpretation of EXOSAT, Ginga, IUE, and ROSAT data from Seyfert Galaxies and BL Lac objects. His recent work involves the observational evidence for, and theoretical implications of, "Compton Reflection" in Seyferts and inhomogeneous relativistic jet models in BL Lacs. Dr. George joined the HEASARC in July of 1991 and his responsibilities center on the reformatting and maintenance of the calibration database.

Jim Lochner earned his doctorate in Physics at the University of Maryland in 1989. He then held a post-doctoral position with the Space Astronomy and Astrophysics group at Los Alamos National Laboratory before joining the HEASARC in October 1991. Dr. Lochner's research interests center on X-ray timing properties of galactic X-ray sources, ranging from the short-term variability of Cyg X-1 to the long-term trends in transients and accretion disk systems. This interest in timing properties also extends to gamma ray bursts. At the HEASARC, Dr. Lochner is bringing together data from various all sky monitors. These include the past missions of Vela 5B and Ariel V, and future missions such as MOXE.

William (Bill) Pence joined the HEASARC in December 1990 and has concentrated on developing standard FITS file formats for data from current and past high energy astronomy missions. He received his Ph.D. in astronomy in 1978 from the University of Texas at Austin. He held research positions at the University of Sussex, England, from 1978 to 1981, and then at the Anglo-Australian Observatory in Sydney, Australia, from 1981 to 1984. Most of his scientific research has been devoted to the study of the internal photometric and kinematic properties of nearby spiral galaxies. He joined the Space Telescope Science Institute from 1984 to 1990 where he was the Project Scientist for development of the the Calibration Database Software System and later was head of the branch responsible for archiving and distributing the HST data.

Nicholas (Nick) White has been Director of the HEASARC since its inception in November 1990. He received his Ph.D. in 1977 through Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College, London, UK. Prior to becoming Director of the HEASARC, Dr. White was EXOSAT Project Scientist and was responsible for the creation of the EXOSAT data archive. His research interests include stellar coronae and X-ray binaries, and particularly, accretion onto compact objects.

Support Staff

Brendan Perry received a BS in Physics and a BS in Astronomy from Pennsylvania State University in 1989. From January 1988 until July 1989 he was a research associate with the X-ray astronomy group at Penn State. This position required software development as well as design and prototyping of housekeeping board hardware for a sounding rocket program. From January 1990 until March 1991 he was a research physicist for SFA, Inc. on contract at the Naval Research Laboratory Gamma and Cosmic Ray Astrophysics Branch. At NRL, he conducted reduction and analysis of Gamma Ray Spectrometer data for the Solar Maximum Mission Experiment. This analysis included software development for a search of SMM data for gamma ray transients. In March of 1991, he joined the HEASARC where he performs data analysis software development, data conversion to FITS format, and data reformatting for implementation into the HEASARC database system.

Katherine Rhode received a Bachelor's degree in Physics from Sonoma State University in northern California in June 1989. That summer she held a NSF research assistantship at the Maria Mitchell Observatory, Nantucket, Massachusetts. In addition to managing the Observatory's weekly public observing nights and astronomy lectures, she studied period changes of s-Cepheid stars and authored two papers for publication in the Journal of the American Association of Variable Star Observers. Later that year she began work as a programmer analyst for the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (UIT) project at GSFC, where she wrote mission planning and image analysis software and digitized pre-flight calibration images in preparation for UIT's launch on the Space Shuttle. Ms. Rhode joined the HEASARC in March 1991; her responsibilities include maintaining and enhancing the BROWSE software, and reformatting data for incorporation into the HEASARC On-line Service.

Karen Smale received her BS in Physics from the University of Colorado in 1986. While still at the University, she worked as a solar observer at NOAA where she developed a new solar proton event prediction model. After graduation, she held the position of solar forecaster for the Solar Maximum Mission satellite at GSFC. Shortly before the demise of SMM, Ms. Smale moved to the Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics and became a Mission Planner for the Broad Band X-Ray Telescope (part of the ASTRO-1 shuttle mission). Ms. Smale joined the HEASARC in February of 1991 where she is responsible for the VMS version of XSPEC, HEASARC bookings, and the ROSAT Guest Observer Facility. Ms. Smale is editor of Legacy and the ROSAT Newsletter and is currently analyzing some X-ray binary data from the BBXRT mission.

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