Following a competitive selection process, the ALMA Board has appointed Sean Dougherty to lead the Observatory as the new ALMA Director for 5 years, starting in April 2018.
Sean Dougherty is currently Director of the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory, Canada’s national radio astronomy facility, which is run by NRC Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics. He has served as a member of the ALMA Board representing North America for 4 years and was the chair of the ALMA Budget Committee for the last 2 years.
ALMA appoints New Director
Published: 10 Jul 2017
Sean received his PhD in Astrophysics from the University of Calgary, Canada, in 1993, following a degree in Mathematics and Physics from University of Nottingham, England. He has over 20 years of science and engineering management experience in radio astrophysics, from management and representation of Canada’s contributions to international radio astronomy facilities and R&D projects, to leadership of major science and engineering activities at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory (DRAO). He also led the construction and delivery of the WIDAR correlator for the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (JVLA), and is currently leading the international consortium designing the correlator-beamformer for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA).
The ALMA Board extended its appreciation to Stuartt Corder, who has served and will continue to serve as the ALMA acting Director during the transition process.