SALT - Southern African Large Telescope

Larry Ramsey

Dr. Lawrence Ramsey is a Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Pennsylvania State University. He completed his degree in Physics at the University of Missouri St. Louis while working as an engineer at McDonnell-Douglas. After working for McDonnell-Douglas Corporation, as Aircraft and Spacecraft Simulator Systems Engineer from 1966-70, Dr Ramsey obtained MS in Physics from Kansas State University in 1972 and a PhD in Astronomy in 1996. During that period he also spent a year working at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) in Tucson. He has been at Penn State since 1976 where he pursued research in solar like activity on stars, stellar seismology and astronomical instrumentation authoring or co-authoring over 90 papers. His major focus since 1990 has been implementing the Hobby-Eberly telescope (HET) the concept for which he and Penn State colleagues developed in 1983. He served as project scientist for the HET from inception until 2004. He is currently serving as department head of Astronomy and Astrophysics which is responsible for about 90 personnel and includes several large space astrophysics projects including the Chanda AICS team and the SWIFT team. Dr. Ramsey and his wife are both enjoy the outdoors and spend their leisure time bird watching and on nature travel.

Personal

Born 14 March, 1945 in Louisville, Kentucky;
Married to Mary Ellen Gessling, 1970. No children

Education

Ph.D. Astronomy, 1976, Indiana University
M.S. Physics, 1972, Kansas State University
A.B. Physics and Math, 1968, University of Missouri, St. Louis

Positions Held

7/88-Present Professor, The Pennsylvania State University.
7/82-6/88 Associate Professor, The Pennsylvania State University.
9/76-6/82 Assistant Professor, The Pennsylvania State University.
5/72-9/73 Research Assistant, Kitt Peak National Observatory.
9/66-8/70 Aircraft and Spacecraft Simulator Systems Engineer, Conductron Missouri Corp. (a division of the McDonnell-Douglas Corporation, now Boeing).

Temporary Appointments

7//03-Present: Atronomy & Astrophysics Department Head
9/99-7/2000: Atronomy & Astrophysics Interim Department Head
1991-6/03: Deputy Department Head
1/90-10/04: PSU/UT Hobby-Eberly Telescope (formerly SST) Project Scientist
9/93-11/93: Acting Astronomy & Astrophysics department head
1/90-9/90: PSU/UT Spectroscopic Survey Telescope (SST) interim Project Manager
Consultant for Nordic optical telescope instrumentation, Copenhagen Observatory, 1886-88

Recent National & International Committees

Member, Facilities Subcommittee of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Business and Operations Advisory Committee
Member, Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) Board of directors, January 2004 present
Chair, AURA Oversight Committee for Gemini, 2002-present
Member, AURA Board of Directors, 2002- present
Member, AURA Oversight Committee for Gemini, 2000-2002
Member, AURA New Initiatives Office Oversight Committee October 2000- 2004
Member, International Gemini Science Advisory Committee, 1999-2002
Member, US Gemini Science Advisory Committee, 1996-2002
Member, Southern African Large Telescope Science Working Group, 1999-present

Memberships in professional societies:

American Astronomical Society
Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers
Astronomical Society of the Pacific
International Astronomical Union

Honors and Awards

Distinguished Alumni Award, University of Missouri, St. Louis, Sept 13, 2001
Eberly College of Science Alumni Society 1997 Distinguished Service Award
Finalist for 1997 Discover Magazine Award for Technological Innovation

Research Publications

57 Refereed Publications & 47 articles in conference proceedings or books

Selected Recent publications

Rotational modulation of the photospheric and chromospheric activity in the young, single K2-dwarf
PW And J. Lopez-Santiago , D. Montes , M.J. Fernandez-Figueroa , L.W. Ramsey, Astronomy and Astrophysics, v.411, p.489-502 (2003)

SparsePak: A Formatted Fiber Field Unit for the WIYN Telescope Bench Spectrograph. I. Design, Construction, and Calibration
Bershady, Matthew A.; Andersen, David R.; Harker, Justin; Ramsey, Larry W.; Verheijen, Marc A. W., 2004, The Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Volume 116, Issue 820, pp. 565-590.

The Hobby-Eberly Telescope medium resolution spectrograph and fiber instrument feed
Lawrence W. Ramsey, Leland G. Engel, Nicholas Sessions, Christopher DeFilippo, Michelle Graver, Jeffery Mader Proc. SPIE Vol. 4841, p. 1036-1044, Instrument Design and Performance for Optical/Infrared Ground-based Telescopes; Masanori Iye, Alan F. Moorwood; Eds. Mar 2003

The Hobby-Eberly Telescope: performance upgrades, status, and plans
Booth, John A.; Adams, Mark T.; Barker, Edwin S.; Bash, Frank N.; Fowler, James R.; Good, John M.; Hill, Gary J.; Kelton, Philip W.; Lambert, David L.; MacQueen, Phillip J.; Palunas, Povilas; Ramsey, Lawrence W.; Wesley, Gordon L. Proceedings of the SPIE, Volume 5489, pp. 288-299 (2004).

Performance of the Hobby-Eberly telescope facility instruments
G.H. Hill, P.J. MacQueen, L.W. Ramsey and M.D. Shetrone on Proceedings of the SPIE 5492, 94-104 (2004)

Stellar Astrophysics on the Hobby Eberly Telescope
Lawrence W. Ramsey American Institute of Physics Proceedings in press (2004)