IRSA Appoints New Leadership

By Marcy Harbut (Caltech/IPAC)

Anastasia Laity has been appointed the new Task Lead for the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive (IRSA) effective August 3, 2026. She steps into the role previously held  by Steve Groom, who is now serving as IPAC’s Data Center Lead.

The IRSA Task Lead role oversees the development, testing, and operations of the science data archive to enable scientific research using petabyte-scale datasets and multi-billion-row databases from key NASA astrophysics and planetary missions, including SPHEREx, Euclid, WISE/NEOWISE, and future missions including NEO Surveyor. Laity co-leads IRSA with Vandana Desai, who currently serves as IRSA’s Science Lead.

“I’m very excited to work with Anastasia in her new role as IRSA Task Lead,” Desai said. “She has already been an integral part of the archive’s leadership, first as Deputy Task Lead and most recently as Acting Task Lead, so I’ve had the opportunity to see firsthand how effectively she leads the team through important deliveries and challenges. She is a thoughtful leader, an excellent communicator, and someone who genuinely cares about her team. I’ve really enjoyed working with her, and I’m excited to see all that she will bring to IRSA in this new role.”

Laity earned her M.S. in engineering with a specialization in systems engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2021. In 2000, she received her B.A. in physics with an astronomy concentration from Pomona College. Her career at IPAC spans almost 2.5 decades of supporting multiple missions and science data archives, including IRSA, the NASA Exoplanet Archive, the Keck Observatory Archive (KOA), and IPAC’s Systems Engineering infrastructure team.

Returning to IRSA is a full-circle moment for Laity, whose first job at IPAC was a temporary position maintaining IRSA’s website while the regular systems administrator was on family leave.

“I am excited to be in charge of the group where I started my career at IPAC 24 years ago, and I have enjoyed working here so much for all that time,” Laity said. “I want to make it a place where the next generation of people are happy working here and can grow their skills, and have all of the opportunities that I've had.”

Laity’s comprehensive understanding of IPAC’s overall technical infrastructure made her the ideal fit for the role. “Anastasia brings deep technical expertise and institutional knowledge to the position, having spent over two decades supporting large-scale astronomy data archives at IPAC,” said IPAC Executive Director Tom Greene. “She is exceptionally well-equipped to work together with IRSA Science Lead Dr. Vandana Desai to guide the archive forward in serving ever-larger and more complex data sets in multiple ways.” 

IRSA, one of IPAC’s first science data archives, hosts or provides access to about a trillion astronomical measurements, including all-sky coverage in 29 bands, as well as simulated data to support mission planning and analysis. Laity is excited to continue supporting IRSA’s expanding portfolio. 

“We have some big technology-pushing missions coming down the pipeline,” she said, citing current missions like Euclid, which is driving the migration of services to the cloud, as well as future missions like Ultraviolet Explorer (UVEX), which is expected to launch in 2030. “The technical landscape is constantly shifting at a fast pace, and staying ahead of it means we’re constantly learning, adapting our systems, and finding better ways to do things. We have to keep pushing the archive’s capabilities forward alongside the missions themselves.”