NSF Reviews

For the past two days, I’ve been up at Fermilab (and no, the weather was nowhere NEAR as nice as in this photo) for an NSF review of our project, the Dark Energy Survey.

This review was a little strange for me in the sense that this is the first time I’ve seen how the ‘dark’ side operates. Until now, my entire career in astronomy has been in solar physics, the daytime side of the sky, and I must say things are very different over here. Some things are also exactly the same.

There are always personalities and egos, regardless of the area of science you work in, and I met some real interesting people there. I was fascinated by what some of the people there thought important in our project.

The review was also strange because the Dark Energy Survey is being funded by two government agencies: NSF is funding the data management part (DESDM, this is the team I work for, the part that handles the data coming off of the camera) and DOE which is paying for the camera being built at Fermilab, the Dark Energy Camera (DECam).

Of course, each one handles reviews differently, with each agency having different things they look for, e.g., DOE wants to see contigencies built into the budget while NSF won’t pay for contigencies. Fun stuff.

Anyway, my entire month of January has been eaten up getting ready for that review and now that it’s over I can concentrate on things that are much more interesting, my job and my blog.

I’ve noticed a steady stream on votes coming in for the various contestants, thanks so much for taking the time out to vote.

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