The Imagine Team

Who Writes this Stuff ??

[Left to Right: (Front Row) Sara Mitchell, Meredith Gibb, Anita Krishnamurthi;
(Middle Row) Beth Barbier, Mike Arida, Koji Mukai, Jim Lochner, Karen Smale, Barbara Mattson;
(Back Row) Pat Keeney, Hans Krim, Dave Chuss, George Gliba, Duilia De Mello]

Contributors (not all are pictured above):

Jim Lochner -- Imagine the Universe's numero uno. He keeps it running and keeps everyone happy. He studies X-ray binaries in his spare time (when not listening to "Car Talk".) Jim is happy that the staff of E/PO volunteers is getting almost as large as the Car Talk staff!

Nick White - Director of the Astrophysics Science Division. He founded the HEASARC and continues to encourage us in our E/PO efforts.

Meredith Gibb -- Our second (and fourth) web master extraordinaire. She's one of the happiest people we know, likely due to all that Joan Baez and Peter, Paul & Mary that she listens to. For a short time she wore 3-D glasses for Goddard's Visualization lab, but is back to cheer us up again.

Koji Mukai -- Responsible for running our "Ask an Astrophysicist" service. Also an expert in cataclysmic variables, ASCA, Suzaku, bike trails in Maryland, and the Baltimore Orioles batting averages.

Karen Smale -- Web page designer and graphic artist, among other talents. She can draw you a map to anywhere and sing you a tune to send you on your way. (Since she's part of AstroCappella, it's likely to be a song about the Doppler shift.)

Anita Krishnamurthi -- Joining us after working at NASA HQ, Anita is working on the E/PO programs for the James Webb Space Telescope (http://jwst.gsfc.nasa.gov/) and Beyond Einstein (http://beyondeinstein.gsfc.nasa.gov/).

Mike Arida -- A cleaver speller and jack-of-all-trades who helps visitors to the HEASARC, does part time system administration, manages exhibits, ignores warning labels and has settled down with a wife and son.

George Gliba -- Helps sort through all those Ask an Astrophysicist questions for the archive. As an avid amateur astronomer, he's the person we go to for observational astronomy questions (when he's not spending his nights observing meteor showers). He also sends out all those CDs, posters and booklets.

Beth Barbier -- Education lead for cosmic ray projects, part-time writer and editor for the Imagine site, and moving force behind Cosmicopia (http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/) (See Disc2).

Sara Mitchell -- No longer our newest team member, but still one of our busiest. She can present a workshop, film a commercial, fix a website, wire a house, and hunt down a bargain. She can even work a Macintosh.

Pat Keeney -- Our type AA teacher intern who started with us during summer 2005 and continued throught the school year. He worked on developing activities for the new Suzaku mission. It takes Beth, Sara and Jim to keep up with him!

J.D. Myers -- Concentrates his efforts on the upcoming gamma ray missions Swift and GLAST.

Barbara Mattson -- Web curator and educator lead for Constellation-X, contributor to education program for INTEGRAL, and, oh yes, writer of her own PhD thesis. An avid reader, movie go-er, and budding cyclist. Not as quiet as we had thought!

Christopher Wanjek -- Science writer and contributor to our news features and special exhibits.

Duilia de Mello -- One of our newest contributors, Duilia writes articles for magazines and newspapers, and has done quite a bit of education/outreach work abroad, especially in Brazil and Sweden.

Georgia de Nolfo -- Our second token cosmic ray astrophysicist. She works on ACE and TIGER/HNX and is very enthusiastic about education and public outreach.

Ilana Harrus -- Purveyor of all things French, Ilana stopped rooting for the Red Sox in 2004, but has yet to attend a Nationals game.

Padi Boyd -- Expert in chaos (no wise cracks !) in astronomy. Leader of well-known (at least in these parts) a cappella group and a driving force behind AstroCappella. She heads up the RXTE Guest Observer Facility and the Swift Science Center.

Pat Tyler -- A web geek if we ever saw one. Expert at digitizing images and making presentations look good. If it's out there, she knows how to get it.

Contributors to "Ask an Astrophysicist"

Kevin Boyce -- Physicist, engineer, programmer, web author, and not afraid to let his geek flag fly. When not in Japan working on Suzaku (formerly Astro-E2), he is usually listening to, writing or performing some sort of loud music.

Scott Owens -- Won a Master Class Costuming Award at a recent science fiction convention (thanks to Maggie's Jedi robe.) Also makes light sabers and bread in his spare time. What the heck does he do at work?

Hans Krimm -- Used to teach college physics and astronomy, now hunts gamma-ray bursts and launches balloons.

Amy Fredericks -- Formerly with our Lab, but now a data analyst the Navy Research Lab. She is a master of popular music trivia, a devout fan of Tori Amos, and has a soft spot for Joe Perry of Aerosmith.

Others contributers include Stefan Immler, Mike Loewenstein, Mike Arida, Ilana Harrus, Jeff Livas, Georgia de Nolfo, Barb Mattson, and Jay Cummings.

Some of our former team members:

Laura Whitlock -- Imagine the Universe's first numero uno. It was her idea. She initiated the Education program for the Swift satellite, and is now living the good life in Louisiana.

Jesse Allen - Our first web guru who got things up and running. He is now playing with pretty pictures at Goddard's Visualization lab.

Brian Hewitt -- A former web programmer for us. Once in the radio business (that's broadcast, not the astronomy), he designed our new look in the Spring of 2000.

Gail "Qui-Gon Jinn" Rohrbach - Gail has been training HEASARC GOF knights for many years. She now sits on the both the Swift and RXTE Guest Observer councils, and is also preparing knights for the Swift mission.

Allie Hajian -- Our aspiring benevolent dictator, who once honed her craft with us by bringing the scientists and their science down to Earth. She's now honing her craft as a mother!

Eric Christian -- Our token cosmic ray astrophysicist, and in 2001 was our man in Antarctica! (Jim and Mike are so jealous!)

Jackie Finch -- A teacher intern who came to us via the Johns Hopkins Graduate program during summer 2005. She developed the imaging module for Hera.

Amanda Cook -- Our energetic undergraduate intern during Summer 2003. We worked her to the bone - playing games and doing art projects!

Laura Brenneman -- A former "Ask an Astrophycisist" contributer, she's now pursuing her graduate degree. But she's still active in basketball, soccer, softball, and astrophysics. We'll still take her for our team!

Ryan Dorrill -- Our undergraduate intern during summer 2004. A physics student from UMBC, he wrote webpages for us, played frisbee, worked on short stories, and occasionally disappeared for a few days to hike up Old Rag Mountain.

Steve Fantasia -- Webmaster for the HEASARC. He keeps the webserver and other web-related software up-to-date. He is also known to plan many social events and has an "infamous" movie grading scale.

Maggie "Jedi knight" Masetti - Maggie was the creative force behind the RXTE and Astro-E Learning Centers, among other things. She has answers at hand for many an ask astro question, not to mention a Simpsons or Star Wars quote for every occasion. She now flies in helicopters for Earth Science public outreach.