People of IPAC: New Leaders, New Roles, New Staff

There were many changes in the IPAC team in 2024. We filled 20 positions with people who either joined IPAC afresh or with existing staff who transitioned to new roles. There were also leadership changes with David Ciardi appointed the Deputy Director of NExScI, Jessie Christansen named the new Chief Scientist of NExScI, Tracy Chen appointed the new ZTF Task Lead, Anastasia Laity named the new IRSA Deputy Task Lead and Anahita Alavi starting as the ENSCI Deputy Task Lead.

Personnel joining IPAC or assuming new roles included:

• Zaid Alma – Network and Security Engineer
• Francisco Aragon – Administrative Coordinator
• David Berg – System Engineer
• Catherine Arielle Clark – Scientific Outreach Coordinator
• Tamim Fatahi – Pipeline Operator
• Aidan Horn – Pipeline Operator
• Jacob Jencson – Staff Scientist
• Sean Kindt – Administrative Assistant
• Yuna Kwon – Staff Scientist
• Shao-Yu Lai – Staff Scientist
• Laura Lenkic – Assistant Scientific Researcher
• Tiffany Meshkat – Staff Scientist
• Siddharth Rajiv Mohite – Applications Developer
• Rosemary Bianca Moseley – Applications Developer
• Shaun (Sean) Pollard – Database Administrator
• Nima Chartab (Soltani) – Astronomical Data Scientist
• Nicholas Susemiehl – Scientific Analyst
• Teresa Symons – Staff Scientist
• Gabriela Teresa Torrini – Applications Developer
• Kevin Hardegree-Ullman – Staff Scientist

We also said goodbye to a few valued members of our staff who retired or transitioned to other opportunities. We wish for a long and joyful retirement to long-time IPACer Ellen O'Oleary and success to Dawn Gelino in her new job as the Program Manager of the JPL Exoplanet Exploration Program.