Draco Team Members

Glenn Miller is an astronomer with an interest in applying computer science to scientifc investigations. He is Principal Investigator on the Data Reduction Expert Assistant (Draco) project which is supported by NASA's AISR program. He has authored or co-authored several articles on the development of HST planning software and the application of AI techniques to scientific applications and observatory operations. At the STScI he is Chief of the Advance Planning Systems Branch. He was instrumental in the design and development of the HST Proposal Entry Processor and Spike Scheduling systems. He has published in several areas of astronomy including the initial mass function and stellar birthrate (the "Miller-Scalo IMF"), abundances in peculiar red giant stars, and the evolution of galaxies and clusters. He earned a Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin and was an Assistant Professor of Astronomy at the University of Virginia prior to joining the STScI staff in 1983.

Felix Yen joined the Space Telescope Science Institute staff in October 1991 to work on the Draco project. As a computer scientist, he was the principal designer and developer of Draco. Upon completion of the initial development of Draco in November 1993, he left the STScI for Cadre Technologies. He received a Ph.D. in Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence) from Brown University in 1991.

Mark Johnston is an Senior Scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) where he is Deputy Head of the Science and Engineering Systems Division. He was responsible for the design and development of both the Proposal Entry Processor (PEP) and SPIKE HST scheduling system. He received his Ph.D. from M.I.T. in 1978 with a thesis on HEAO-1 X-ray observations of the Large Magellanic Cloud. He received his Ph.D. from M.I.T. in 1978 with a thesis on HEAO-1 X-ray observations of the Large Magellanic Cloud. He has extensive experience with satellite data and has authored or co-authored ~30 papers based on the analysis of HEAO-1 X-ray data. He developed the data analysis system for the HEAO-1 X-ray modulation collimator experiment. His other research interests include numerical hydrodynamics, nucleosynthesis in supernovae, statistics and classification techniques, and the application of advanced software and computing techniques to astronomical research. He was an Assistant Professor of Astronomy at the University of Virginia before moving to STScI in 1982.

Robert Hanisch is an Associate Scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) and is Chief of the Science Software Branch of the Science Computing and Research Support Division. He is responsible for both the development of the STSDAS software package for HST data analysis and for the day to day operations of all STScI scientific computing facilities. Dr. Hanisch has overseen the migration of the HST data analysis software from a VMS-dependent system to a totally portable system integrated with IRAF. His scientific background is in radio astronomy. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Maryland in 1981 on the topic of diffuse radio emission from clusters of galaxies, and continued work on extragalactic radio sources as a post-doctoral research fellow at the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope in the Netherlands. He has been involved with the STSDAS project at the STScI since 1984.

With Support From: A number of people assisted us in this project by sharing their ideas, time and data. These include: Ron Gilliland, Keith Horne, Phil Martel, Richard Griffiths, Kavan Ratnatunga, Jack MacConnell, Jim Roberts, Dan Golombek, and Stefi Baum.