Published: 22 January 2024

2024-Jan-22: The VERITAS Collaboration is pleased to recognize the recipients of the 2022 "Outstanding Contribution Awards". Each year the collaboration recognizes exceptional work by two individuals - a graduate student (the Simon Swordy Outstanding Contribution Award) and a postdoctoral researcher (the Trevor Weekes Outstanding Contribution Award), to "...formally recognize the significant contributions of more early-career members of the collaboration in the critical service work that enables scientific publications of VERITAS, but do not result in any scientific publications directly".

This year's recipients are:

Matthew Lundy (Simon Swordy Award) - For a wide variety of service tasks, including his extraordinary contribution to observing (nearing ~20 observing weeks since 2018) and as one of the key volunteer VEGAS developers and instrument response producers. In his work on software, Matthew has been diagnosing and debugging many issues including the spectral analysis with ring background model calculations, light curve analysis, instrument response functions, and data formats, all of which are critical in the analysis pipelines which make scientific publications possible.  He has additionally worked to develop a software tool which can be used for cross-checking expected package sensitivities for a range of observational datasets.  In addition to ensuring that his efforts are well documented and communicated clearly to the collaboration as a whole, Matthew has also been actively supporting the early-career members. As part of this work, he organizes tutorial sessions on various topics at the VCM and the weekly early-career zoom meetings.

Serena Loporchio - (Trevor Weekes Award) - For major service tasks within pSCT, including the development of the prototype Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope (pSCT) camera. She has coordinated the quality control measurement tests conducted on FBK SiPM tiles developed for pSCT, completing these tasks with several installation and commissioning shifts, both on-site and remotely.  More recently she has been completing detailed characterizations of the new SMART preamplifier ASIC and of the new FEE modules, both of which are key components in the pSCT camera upgrade. Serena’s service contributions to pSCT have been fundamental for the entire SCT collaboration and made the first pSCT publications, including the Crab detection by the pSCT, possible.  Additionally, Serena has been active in outreach, education and transfer of knowledge, engaging in numerous outreach events annually, specifically with several talks aimed at college and high school students on pSCT and CTA more generally.

Congratulations to Matthew and Serena!

Matthew Lundy     Dr. Serena Loporchio

Published: 15 August 2023

2023-Aug-15: The members of the VERITAS Collaboration were very saddened by the news that our friend and long-time colleague John Finley passed away on the 16th of July 2023.  John was an insightful scientist who made hugely significant contributions to the Whipple telescope, an effort which allowed for the discovery of the first VHE sources.  Before his work on Whipple, he contributed to the Haleakala gamma-ray observatory.

John was one of the founders of VERITAS and was a key contributor to the VERITAS proposals and construction of the instrument.  He fought in the trenches as the chair of the VERITAS Executive Committee during a critical time, navigating the intricacies of startup and helping to bring VERITAS into operation under challenging circumstances.  

John was wise and incredibly patient, an inspirational scientist and a wonderful person.   His good humour and sense of fun meant that it was always such a pleasure to work with him.  He always had so much enthusiasm in what he did and was so supportive of the work of his colleagues and students.  Many of his past students note his support as a significant source of motivation for remaining in the field. 

The VERITAS Collaboration sends their condolences to all of John’s family, friends and colleagues.

An obituary for John can be found here (https://soller-baker.com/obituary/john-p-finley/).

Published: 04 January 2023

2023-Jan-04: The VERITAS Collaboration is pleased to recognize the recipients of the 2022 "Outstanding Contribution Awards". Each year the collaboration recognizes exceptional work by two individuals - a graduate student (the Simon Swordy Outstanding Contribution Award) and a postdoctoral researcher (the Trevor Weekes Outstanding Contribution Award), to "...formally recognize the significant contributions of more early-career members of the collaboration in the critical service work that enables scientific publications of VERITAS, but do not result in any scientific publications directly".

This year's recipients are:

Colin Adams (Simon Swordy Award) - Colin was awarded the 2022 Simon Swordy Award for a broad range of technical contributions to both VERITAS and the pSCT, as well as significant participation and leadership in Diversity Equity and Inclusivity (DEI) activities. Colin’s technical contributions to VERITAS include “the service task of GT factor (scaling factor for gain and throughput) calculation and code management,” and producing GT-factor corrected 0.5^o wobble offset IRFs, “a critical path for future experimental results coming out of the collaboration.” In addition Colin maintains the “VERPS” proposal submission system for VERITAS TAC proposal submission and has served on the TAC from 2021-2022. With regards to the pSCT, Colin has “measured and calibrated the flasher response in the lab” and is “helping to test and debug  … server-based run control code for SCT data taking.” Colin has made significant contributions to the DEI efforts of the VERITAS Collaboration including organising weekly “debug den” sessions for early-career members and informal “conversation and feedback” for graduate students, and has made many outstanding DEI contributions at his home institution.

Ste O'Brien - (Trevor Weekes Award) - Ste was awarded the 2022 Trevor Weekes award for undertaking two major service tasks within VERITAS, namely "his co-czarship of the Calibration working group in 2019-2020, and his long service on the TAC including chairship this year,… both tasks that are out of the limelight and not visible outside of the collaboration - yet both are essential to the collaboration and to our production of science publications.” VERITAS has a complicated calibration environment with a wide variety of procedures: “… keeping the enterprise on task… is a daunting task and Ste carried (and continues to carry!) it out wonderfully”. The Time Allocation Committee task is also integral to the functioning of the instrument and the collaboration, and to our production of meaningful science in a timely way. Ste has served on the TAC since 2017, chaired it in 2021-2022 and was asked by the Collaboration to (co-)chair it again in 2022-2023. “The mark of success of the TAC process is that the resulting observing plan is reasoned, robust, well-supported by the collaboration, and still flexible to ToOs and DDT requests – a tough balancing act that Ste has supported and stewarded for numerous years.”. Ste’s service contributions to VERITAS are all the more impressive which they were undertaken while he also had significant commitments to the HELIX group.

Congratulations to Colin and Ste!

Colin Adams   Dr. Ste O'Brien

Published: 01 July 2022

2022-Jul-05:  It is with great sadness that the VERITAS Collaboration notes the passing of Ken Gibbs, who died peacefully at home on 23 June 2022. Ken was a driving force behind the realisation of VERITAS and had played a foundational role in the development of the imaging atmospheric while a graduate student with the Whipple collaboration. 

Ken's 1986 University of Arizona PhD dissertation entitled "Application of Imaging to the Atmospheric Cherenkov Technique: Observations of the Crab Nebula and Pulsar" paved the way forthe first detection of a source, the Crab Nebula, at TeV energies in 1989 and the birth of a new branch of astronomy.

Ken was employed by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory as Operations Manager for VERITAS from 2001 to 2011 where he was a leader in the design, construction and initial operation of the VERITAS array. Ken also made outstanding contributions to the CASA/MIA air shower experiment at the Enrico Fermi Institute of the University of Chicago from 1987 to 1993 and the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina from 1995 to 2001, with which he was a senior research associate. The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) radio telescope also benefited from Ken's expertise when he served as its project manager from 2014 to 2015.

Ken was an inspirational colleague and will be sorely missed by the many people who had the opportunity to work with him. 

The VERITAS Collaboration offers its sincerest condolences to Ken's wife, Lynette Wood, and family at this difficult time.

An obituary for Ken can be found here: (https://www.islandssounder.com/obituaries/kenneth-gibbs-passages/)