NEID Queue Observers Onboard

NEID Queue Observers Jessica Klusmeyer (left) & Eli Golub

Heidi Schweiker (WIYN/NOAO)

Two young astronomers, Eli Golub and Jessica Klusmeyer, joined the WIYN team this month as queue observers for NEID, the extreme precision radial velocity spectrometer. NEID is being developed as part of NN-EXPLORE, a NASA-NSF partnership that aims to provide the astronomical community with a state-of-the-art spectrograph dedicated to high-precision Doppler observations of exoplanets around nearby stars. Shared risk observations with NEID are scheduled to begin in December 2019.

Jessica and Eli both have physics and astronomy degrees as well as experience with astronomical observing. Jessica recently received her Masters degree at Wesleyan, where she completed her thesis research on “A Deep Search for Five Molecules in the Debris Disk of 49 Ceti”. Eli has been working as a Field Observational Astronomer through the University of Virginia, where he observed occultations of KBOs, asteroids and planetary satellites. Eli and Jessica will play major roles in bringing NEID into stable and productive operation. They will also assist with WIYN observing in general.