It takes a village to raise… the ALMA observatory

It takes a village to raise… the ALMA observatory

During the three months that I worked as a visitor in the “Commissioning and Science Verification” group at ALMA, I had the opportunity to spend four week-long “turnos” (shifts) in northern Chile at the ALMA Operations Support Facility (OSF), where the antennas are operated.  If you’re interested to learn more about ALMA, you can check out the webpage, or my two previous posts about my experiences during turnos at ALMA.  For some of the early science results from ALMA, check out these astrobites.Scientifically and personally, ALMA is an interesting and inspiring place to work.  Making observations and then analyzing data, I worked with a number of people with a variety of positions and expertise.  At the end of a recent turno I asked them a few simple questions to get a better idea of what a job at ALMA entails.  Below are their responses (to the questions in bold), which represent just one sample of perspectives, but to me are sufficiently interesting and demonstrate the diversity and complexity of this project.1. How long have you worked at ALMA?  What is your position/title here?At any given time at the OSF, a team of ALMA staff work together to tackle all aspects of the system.  Job titles (for those interviewed here) at ALMA include commissioning scientist, data analyst and system astronomer.  ALMA is an international partnership of Europe, North America and East Asia in cooperation with the Republic of Chile, so the control room is nearly always staffed with a very diverse group of people from around the world.  Many organizations contribute funding and personnel for the project.One of the scientists...