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2006 Annual Report

Index: Personnel | Research | Programmatic | Publications

I. Personnel

(i) JCA Comings & goings

Drs. Jay Cummings and James van Meter Jaames van Meter

joined the JCA during this accounting period. Jay Cummings joined the JCA as a member of the Astroparticle Physics Laboratory (Code 661) on 2006 May 01 (NASA/GSFC Sponsor: Neil Gehrels) to provide scientific support for the Swift/BAT instrument at the NASA/GSFC controlling instrument operations and analysis of data from Swift in coordination with the BAT Team. James van Meter joined the JCA as a member of the Gravitational Astrophysics Laboratory (Code 663) on 2006 Jul 03 (NASA/GSFC Sponsor: Joan Centrella). Both Cummings and van Meter performed consultancy work (via the JCA) prior to their permenant appointments. The only other changes in scientific personnel was the funding of Markos Georganopoulos an 8-week period starting Aug 19 (NASA/GSFC Sponsor: Demos Kazanas). Ex-JCA employees also received leave pay-out payments during the first quarter of calendar 2006.

UMBC appointed Ms. Kathy Wimpling as a emergency/temporary Business Manager for the JCA upon the departure of Ms. Rose Rose last year. Ms Wimpling helped with the 2005 reconciliation, and with the preparations of the 2006 JCA predictions. In 2006 Jan, Ms. Debbie Cherry was appointed as a temporary Administration Assistant on a part-time/short-duration basis. We thought this would be a few-week appointment: it turned into a many-month appointment. Ms Cherry remaind in this capacity through the end of the JCA coop.

(ii) JCA Promotions

The only promotion during this period was that of Volker Beckmann to Assistant Research Professor in recognition of his promotion to the Lead Scientist in the INTEGRAL Guest Observer Facility at GSFC, and his contribution the educational activities at UMBC. (Jim Chiang decided not to seek the promotion mentioned in last year's report).

(iii) JCA Visitors

The JCA hosted Dr. Wlodzimierz Kluzniak as a visitor to GSFC over the epriod April 01 Ã June 30 (NASA/GSFC sponsors: Drs. William Zheng and Jean Swank). The JCA also hosted visits from Adjunct Assistant Profressor Alexis Finoguenov

Alexis Finogeunov (MPE, Germany, to collaborate with Drs. Mark Henriksen & Dave Davis), and Dr. Kirpal Nandra (Imperial College, London, to

collaborate with Drs. Ian George & Jane Turner). The latter two visitors were not funded through the JCA cooperative agreement.

(iv) JCA Education Activities

PHYS315	PHYS316
PHYS631	PHYS632

JCA members taught 2 undergraduate and 2 graduate-level astrophysics courses at UMBC in 2006. Two UMBC undergraduate students (Kushal Mehta & Phillip Graff) performed research under the mentorship of JCA faculty during 2006 (not directly funded through the JCA cooperative agreement). There remain four graduate students advised by JCA faculty (Deatrick Forster, Alex Padgett, Brian Wingert, & Jianning Zeng), but none were funded through the JCA cooperative agreement.

Index: Personnel | Research | Programmatic | Publications