Optical/IR TAC
Optical/IR TAC Membership
Each member grades every proposal. Therefore, almost every proposal is read and graded by non-experts. It is essential that proposers present the scientific motivation for their proposal in language that astronomers outside their specific field can easily understand.
This year's TAC members, their institutional affiliations, and research areas are:
| Dan Stark (Chair) | UA/SO | extragalactic astronomy (non-voting) |
| E. Olszewski | UA/SO | stellar populations, local group |
| Josh Emery | NAU | asteroids and small solar system bodies |
| Sumner Starrfield | ASU | stars |
| J. Eisner | UA/SO | stars and exoplanets, disks, interferometry |
| E. Howell | LPL | small solar system bodies |
| J. Yang | UA/SO | extragalactic |
| B. Weiner | UA/SO | extragalactic astronomy & cosmology, Instrumentation |
| O. Guyon | UA/SO | instrumentation, extrasolar planets |
Optical/IR TAC Procedures
Steward Observatory schedules its telescopes in semesters.
Before each meeting, TAC members read and grade every proposal except in cases of a conflict of interest. Telescope schedulers provide the TAC a list of available time (bright, gray, dark). For each telescope, proposals are then ranked according to their average grade. TAC members generally base their grades on overall scientific merit and feasibility and demonstrated productivity using Arizona facilities such as refereed publications, conference proceedings, and prompt analysis of data. The final rankings are provided to the schedulers who generate a preliminary schedule for all telescopes for approval by the Director. A final schedule is posted online about one month prior to the start of the next semester.
(Aug 25, 2023)
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