2012 CFHT Annual Report - Canada France Hawaii Telescope ...

CFHT 2012 Annual Report
Brandon Metz
Brandon Metz joined CFHT's instrumentation group in the
third quarter of 2012. With a strong background in robotics,
Brandon's first project is the Telescope Control System (TCS)
upgrade as well as dome shutter investigations. Brandon
started his career working at a laser welding systems company
that built many automated machines for the medical,
automotive, and military industries. Later he went on to join
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to work further in the field
of robotics and vision systems. While at JPL he worked for 5
years on the Mars Curiosity Rover working intimately with its
mechanisms and the motor control assembly. The Curiosity
rover successfully touched down on Mars in early August of
2012 and after working 25 sols (Mars days) he left to start his new career at CFHT. Brandon has hobbies
in software defined radio, motor controllers, amateur astrophotography, machining, and surfing.
Doug Simons
Doug Simons (re)joined CFHT on 1 May 2012. Doug graduated from
Caltech with his B.Sc. in astronomy from Caltech in 1985, then
received his PhD in astronomy from the University of Hawaii in
1990 before joining CFHT as the UH sponsored resident
astronomer. While there he led the development of CFHT’s first
facility infrared array cameras. In 1994 he joined the Gemini 8 m
Telescopes Project in Tucson as Systems Scientist, where he stayed
for 18 years, the last 5 of which as Gemini Director. He now joins
CFHT as Executive Director. Doug enjoys woodworking, fishing, and
upland game bird hunting and together with his wife Judy has
raised 3 kids, Kirstie, Chris, and Jacob.
Organization Chart and Staff List
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