Compilation of Responses to Homework Assignment as of 12:30 am Tuesday Oct 23rd Scribe: Claire Max _______________________________________ Homework Assignments 1) Please write a short paragraph or bulleted list describing your own CfAO-related interests, and those of others on your campus who did not attend this meeting (faculty, students, post-docs, researchers). 2) Future directions for the CfAO: Please list your favorite two things that have been most valuable to you about the CfAO in the past, and two new things that you would like to see a UC CfAO undertake in the future. [If you are a new participant, of course, feel free to omit the first part of this question.] ________________________________________ From: jswerner@ucdavis.edu Subject: Re: Brief homework assignment for CfAO mtg Date: October 20, 2007 5:24:42 PM PDT To: max@ucolick.org Cc: lward@ucolick.org, dahorsley@ucdavis.edu, sschoi@ucdavis.edu, rjzawadzki@ucdavis.edu There are four researchers at UC Davis with active programs of research on adaptive optics. These include Choi, Werner and Zawadzki in Ophthalmology & Vision Science.  They use AO in combination with OCT for ultrahigh resolution of retinal volumes.  These researchers also use AO flood-illuminated AO for retinal imaging and psychophysics.  In addition, David Horsley in Mechanical Engineering works on the development and characterization of  MEMS for use in telecommunications and vision science.  Scot may know of others at UC  Davis. UC Davis is not formally a part of the current CfAO but has benefited from CfAO activities. Continuation of an annual retreat, summer school and small student grants to work at other institutions for short periods would be activities that I would like to encourage. Jack http://vsri.ucdavis.edu/ University of California, Davis Department of Ophthalmology & Vision Science Section of Neurobiology, Physiology & Behavior Phone:  916-734-6817 Fax:       916-734-4543 ________________________________________ From: "Stanley Klein" Date: October 21, 2007 11:36:05 PM PDT To: "Claire Max" , lward@ucolick.org, "KLEIN, Stanley A." Subject: Re: Brief homework assignment for CfAO mtg Reply-To: sklein@berkeley.edu Dear Claire & Leslie, The 9 UCs plus LLNL and LBL could provide a much needed critical mass for both our students' educational needs and for our research needs and for our grant getting needs. The notion of a UC critical mass could be repeated again and again. In the next paragraph I'll describe one example that is relevant to the VIsion Science groups on all the UC campuses. I think a tremendous boon for the vision part of the CfAO would be to provide some funds for supporting a Laboratory for Adaptive Optics in Vision Science. Many UC vision researchers could benefit from the AO instruments being developed by Roorda, Werner and Olivier.  A modest amount of funds could open a powerful capability up for all the UC campuses and national labs to share that unique equipment. Stan Duncan Jacque , Hunter Lisa , MacLeod Don < dmacleod@ucsd.edu>, Olivier Scot , Roorda Austin , Werner Jack < jswerner@ucdavis.edu>, Levi Dennis , ________________________________________ From: Aaron Barth Date: October 22, 2007 1:57:32 PM PDT To: Claire Max Cc: lward@ucolick.org Subject: CfAO Reply-To: barth@uci.edu 1.) UCI participants: ----------------------- Gary Chanan: I have worked on wavefront sensing and optical alignment for the last twenty years and was a founding member of the CfAO. I was responsible for the segment phasing and alignment of the Keck telescopes. [Segment phasing is essential for adaptive optics to work on segmented telescopes like Keck or TMT.] I am currently working on wavefront sensing and optical alignment for the Thirty Meter Telescope, and I have maintained my interest in atmospheric optics in the context of AO. My recent PhD student, Lianqi Wang, did an experimental thesis on turbulence profiling for AO using SloDAR (Slope Detection and Ranging), in which he succeeded in separating and following different turbulence layers with different wind velocities. He now works in the AO group at the TMT Project Office. -------------------------- Aaron Barth: I am an astronomer with interests in supermassive black holes and active galaxies. I have recently begun using AO at Keck, and anticipate having more of my research based on AO observations in the future. -------------------------- 2) Future directions. The CfAO summer schools are very valuable for our students. We will continue to send UCI students and postdocs if the summer program continues in the future. One thing that would be very helpful would be tutorial workshops on astronomical AO observing and data reduction techniques. This would be something separate from the CfAO summer school programs. Many observers in the UC system are beginning to use AO instruments (OSIRIS particularly) and the data reduction and analysis is very different from what most of us have done before, and very complex. Space observatories like Spitzer and Chandra hold data reduction workshops every 1-2 years to train graduate students and postdocs using real data. I can imagine something like this for OSIRIS being very useful, and it would help the UC community to get more AO science done more efficiently. Something like a 2 day workshop might be about right, focused on observing techniques and hands-on data analysis tutorials for a specific instrument. ___________________________________________ From: Tommaso Treu Date: October 22, 2007 3:07:29 PM PDT To: Claire Max Subject: Re: draft of CfAO proposal to UCOP Hi Claire, the draft is a good starting point. I think it'd be good to emphasize in the mission and through the document the parts connected with graduate students, both **recruitment** and **training**. We have a huge problem at UCSB with recruiting good students for astro, because they don't think they have enough opportunities. Knowing that there is a adaptive optics intercampus initiative, with opportunity to spend time at CfAO or elsewere would be a good way to attract more good students, as well as to train them once they get here. From a practical point of view, it may be nice to have some "mobility" funds (this is what they are called in the European Union), for graduate students to spend, e.g., a quarter/semester in a different UC campus to work on a CfAO-blessed project. E.g. somebody from UCSB could spend a quarter at UCSC to learn about the technical aspects, or somebody from UCSC could spend a quarter at UCSB to learn about the science that we do, start collaborations etc. I don't think it would cost much and it may be something useful. As for the homework assignment: 1) I am interested in high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy applied to the field of gravitational lensing. The ultimate scientific goals are to study dark matter in galaxies and clusters of galaxies, study the most distant and smallest galaxies, and constrain the geometry of the Universe. In addition to people in my group at UCSB, Prof Crystal Martin and Prof Carl Gwinn expressed interest in adaptive optics. 2) I would like CfAO to help UC recruit and train graduate student by fostering collaborations at a multicampus level See you tomorrow, Tommaso ___________________________________________ Don MacLeod: 1) ‘Please jot down a short paragraph or bulleted list describing your own CfAO-related interests, and those of others on your campus who did not attend this meeting (faculty, students, post-docs, researchers). This will help us understand how each campus might participate most fully in a new IGPP CfAO.’ • We are constructing an Adaptive Optics rig for research on human vision, to enable higher resolution for stimulating and imaging the retina by compensating for optical imperfections of the eye. Our work is still in its early stages, and I have benefited from discussions at CfAO with others whose efforts in this direction are more advanced, such as Austin Roorda. Particular aims for this project include: • Use hill-climbing in the space of Zernike coefficients to optimize the power of retinal images in the band representing the photoreceptor mosaic. • Use dynamic algorithms to constrain wavefront estimation, gaining noise immunity through appropriate integration over time. Although the benefits of adaptive optics are greatest using a dilated pupil and paralyzed accommodation, it remains to be seen how helpful it can be without lens paralysis if the state of accommodation is tracked. • I would like to try the visual equivalent of ‘lucky’ astronomy, in which a wavefront sensor is used to determine the most propitious moments for delivering a stimulus or imaging flash during the fluctuations of the tear film. • CfAO’s importance for vision research extends beyond the compensation of aberrations and encompasses more generally for the technical and conceptual development of wavefront sensors applicable to the eye. I am interested in applying the Hartmann-Shack wavefront sensor to the accommodation and pupil reflex, and to the study of the optical properties of the photoreceptor array, specifically the directionality of its reception and radiation of light. • My UCSD Medical School colleague Dirk-Uwe Bartsch (Ophthalmology) was involved in the first studies of retinal imaging using closed loop adaptive optics. He is currently interested in integrating adaptive optics into ophthalmic instruments for clinical use. Bartsch, Dr. Pam Sample and I have discussed a projected application to NIH for a Vision Research Center at UCSD, of which retinal imaging involving adaptive optics would be one component, but those plans are on hold at the moment. 2) ‘Future directions for the CfAO: Please list the two things that have been most valuable to you about the NSF-sponsored CfAO in the past, and two *new* things that you would like to see a UC IGPP CfAO undertake in the future.’ A 1. In my limited contact with CfAO I have been impressed to see how effectively insights about the challenging conceptual and technical problems involved can be shared between investigators whose particular applications may be very different. A 2. More specifically it seems clear that CfAO has been instrumental in encouraging the development of affordable deformable mirrors. This has been and continues to be important to vision researchers like myself, and will be still more important as these devices begin to be adopted for diagnosis in the ophthalmology clinic. B. In future I would like to see more coordination of software development, mainly in two directions: B 1. Coordinated development of source code that is readily adaptable to different platforms. B 2. Coordinated development of image processing pipelines for speedier execution using affordable graphics processor hardware (notably, Nvidia’s Compute Unified Device Architecture, CUDA). These developments should be helpful initially to vision researchers like myself, and later to engineers and physicians with purely clinical concerns. ___________________________________________ From: Lisa Poyneer Date: October 22, 2007 4:02:13 PM PDT To: Claire Max Cc: lward@ucolick.org Subject: response to 'homework' CfAO related-interests: ------------------------- Research into new AO algorithms and technologies for wavefront sensing, reconstruction and control which will enable advanced new AO instruments. Future directions: ------------------------- Two things most valuable in the past: a) Providing research funding to individuals or small groups for work which enables future projects. b) Holding the Retreats, which have very effectively fostered communication and collaboration in the US AO community Two new things for the future: a) Continue to facilitate communication and collaboration in the AO community b) Since direct CfAO funding for research will no longer exist, help CfAO members find new sources of funding. ___________________________________________ From Austin Roorda, UC Berkeley: Claire,   I just had a meeting with Stan and Dennis. Here is our pre-meeting input::::   The UC Berkeley group is enthusiastic about a mechanism to maintain a broad and diverse community of AO researchers, both within the UC system and possibly outside the UC system. The latter group (Indiana and Rochester, for example) would likely have to provide their own funds to take part.   Another concept (expanding on what Stan suggested earlier) is the establishment of the Laboratory for Ophthalmic Adaptive Optics (LOAO). In the first years, it might be a virtual laboratory, where a programmer is supported in full or in part to develop and deliver an AO-control software packages to various labs that are interested. The software would adopt the best elements from working systems (UC Berkeley, Livermore and UC Davis) and package it into a modular form that could be shared with other UC sites. The original sites would use the improved software, but the biggest benefit would be for new sites, such as UCSD and UCSF. In future years, with co-funding from other sources, the LOAO could occupy actual space, with an actual AO system for retinal imaging and psychophysics. Other sources would be used to pay for the instrument hardware, but the CFAO could provide salary support for a technician to run the system as well as to develop experiment-specific software. Members of the CFAO who might not have any need to use the system would still benefit from ongoing software support. Other suggestions (from Austin only) -Offer a UC wide AO course for credit (do you do this already Claire??) -hold only one retreat per year (there may not be enough interest to maintain critical mass at the retreat, especially since there is no research funding)   see you tomorrow Austin ___________________________________________ From Stan Klein, UC Berkeley: Austin: That looks like a great summary. The idea of having the various UC Ophthalmic AO systems all working on their software development based on a common platform can have great benefit in collaborative work and also in more rapid common software development. And the future year transition to having a lab with an actual system available to all UC campuses can produce a really wonderful platform for cutting edge collaborations. Stan ___________________________________________ From: "Jay W. Dawson" Date: October 22, 2007 5:22:41 PM PDT To: Claire Max Subject: Re: Fwd: Brief homework assignment for CfAO mtg Claire, With regards to question 1 below: My CFAO interest is in the development of 589nm laser systems for laser guide star based AO systems. We here at the lab have also been interested in advances in MEMS technology for AO systems for large scale lasers. With regards to question 2 below: The laser workshop that Don has been organizing at the CFAO retreats has been invaluable in my opinion in advancing 589nm laser technology. We were able to consistently get everyone working on these lasers in the same place at the same time for regular discussions. This has helped everyone advance their work in this area. This would be extremely unlikely to happen without ongoing support for the workshop from CFAO. I would very much like to see this continue. The fall retreat is also quite valuable in general for me in terms of understanding the various AO applications. Hope this helps. Thanks, Jay ___________________________________________ From: Andrea Ghez Date: October 22, 2007 4:50:45 PM PDT To: max@ucolick.org Subject: Re: Brief homework assignment for CfAO mtg Reply-To: Andrea Ghez Claire, CfAO has been a great success!!!! The things that are most striking to me are that it provides a great learning center for grads/postdoc/ faculty in a new area of research. This gives students an opportunity they would never get at a single campus as each campus brings its own unique set skills/expertise/faculty. The cross-fertilization has been a tremendous asset. It helps recruit graduate students and faculty. It has also been an important source of funding that has seeded further funding from both National agencies and private donors. There have been multiple funding synergies. Those are my 2 cents. Sincerely, Andrea ___________________________________________ From: Gabriela Canalizo Date: October 22, 2007 4:29:06 PM PDT To: Claire Max Subject: Re: Brief homework assignment for CfAO mtg > Hi Claire, These are really quick answers, but hopefully better than nothing... > 1) Please jot down a short paragraph or bulleted list describing > your own CfAO-related interests, and those of others on your campus > who did not attend this meeting (faculty, students, post-docs, > researchers). This will help us understand how each campus might > participate most fully in a new IGPP CfAO. The CfAO has done a very good job creating an AO user/developer community among the different campuses in UC in particular, as well as with other institutions. I have been able to start several collaborations out of this community and to learn from other people. Most valuable for me has been the network that the CfAO has provided for my students. The summer school has been useful not only for the knowledge that they gained, but also for the networking with students from other campuses. It also helps them to feel like they are part of something big. And being able to send one of my students to work at the LAO for over a year was an incredible asset to me. > 2) Future directions for the CfAO: Please list the two things that > have been most valuable to you about the NSF-sponsored CfAO in the > past, and two *new* things that you would like to see a UC IGPP > CfAO undertake in the future. [If you are a new participant, of > course, feel free to omit the first part of this question.] > Past: 1. CfAO summer school and opportunities for students to collaborate with other campuses 2. The development work being done at the LAO, in particular in connection with very large telescopes. Future: 1. I would love to have various one or two day data reduction workshops, just like the ones that Spitzer runs. These would be much more technical and hands on than the CfAO retreats, where people would bring their laptops and spend a day learning about, for example, the data pipeline for OSIRIS or discussing (and practicing) what's the best approach to measuring photometry in AO images. The audience would be anywhere from students to faculty. I see this as very important considering that we will soon have more AO instruments, and that AO will be so crucial for the TMT. 2. In the same vein, it would be great if the CfAO could sponsor (or even provide the extra man power) the development of data reduction software for the new instruments. ___________________________________________ From: Jessica Lu Date: October 22, 2007 6:49:10 PM PDT To: Claire Max Cc: Andrea Ghez Subject: CfAO Hi Claire, Sorry for the delay, I forgot to send before 6 pm. CfAO related interests: AO summer school: -- AO education that I wouldn't have gotten without CfAO -- builds strong community amongst graduate students and gave me AO experts to contact when I started using AO systems myself. -- provided teaching opportunity later on as I was a member of the lab staff for the AO summer school CfAO retreats: -- showed what others were doing with AO and kept me informed about other AO systems around the world -- my favorite session of all time at a CfAO retreat was the AO users session where a bunch of people who use AO in astronomy got together and talked about problems/successes/issues/etc. This spawned a lot of brain-storming about how we could improve our own observations as well as future AO systems. -- continued to provide strong sense of community -- other grads have mentioned to me that CfAO is their primary outlet for interacting with graduate students from other campuses and disciplines. See Funding: -- without some sort of funding available, it may be hard to motivate faculty attendance at the retreats. Future Directions: -- would like to see the retreats have focus sessions where technical users of AO systems could get together with AO system builders and transfer knowledge. Would like to see more knowledge transfer and dissemination during the retreat as I think it will add value. -- AO summer school is one of the BEST ways to foster community; however, you could possibly do something similar at the retreat with less expense (1 day pre-session with intro-to-AO or some such thing). Alternatively you could offer your class through UCSC with video conferencing; and just advertise it well at the retreats. The AO summer school labs were very successful and it would be great if we could keep these around somehow. -- I have enjoyed the vision science cross-over in my CfAO related activities; however, I am not sure I understand how it fits under the IGPP??? -- Professional Development Workshop... loved it... some of the only educational training I have ever received. Does it need to be part of CfAO? Does it make it a better sell? Can it be almost self-sustaining? Cheers, Jessica ___________________________________________ Dirk-Uwe Bartsch: 1) Please jot down a short paragraph or bulleted list describing your own CfAO- related interests, and those of others on your campus who did not attend this meeting (faculty, students, post-docs, researchers). This will help us understand how each campus might participate most fully in a new IGPP CfAO. - My main interest in the CfAO project is the application of adaptive optics for imaging the retina in high resolution with scanning laser ophthalmoscopes and optical coherence tomography. We have several deformable mirror (Oko Technologies, Xinetics) and different scanning laser ophthalmoscope for imaging. Our early experiments allowed us to visualize the retina with a large field-of-view. Our main interest is in imaging of retinal defects in HIV-positive patients. Our preliminary research work has shown that these patients experience vision loss despite treatment with highly active antiretroviral therapy. We plan to use adaptive optics to improve the detection of subtle changes at the earliest stage to improve long-term patient vision retention. 2) Future directions for the CfAO: Please list the two things that have been most valuable to you about the NSF-sponsored CfAO in the past, and two *new* things that you would like to see a UC IGPP CfAO undertake in the future. [If you are a new participant, of course, feel free to omit the first part of this question.] The most valuable aspects of the past CfAO project were the availability of summer school learning experience for my graduate students and postdoctoral fellows and the availability of discussion with fellow researchers. My prime desires for the new CfAO is the sharing of software code and hardware options to enable a large number of researchers to take advantage of the opportunities available with adaptive optics. ___________________________________________ From: Bruce Macintosh Date: October 22, 2007 8:44:05 PM PDT To: Claire Max Cc: cfao@ucolick.org Subject: late homework Scot's probably summarized LLNL's research interests - -Astronomical AO for high-contrast imaging -AO for biomedical applicaitons -AO for laser beam control (including USP lasers) -AO for remote sensing Most valuable stuff from current center: -Environment for putting together broad collaboraiton between technologists and scientists at a variety of institutions -Access to students (undergraduate and graduate) and other young scientists (Both are particularly valuable in that they provide opportunities outside of LLNL's rather strict security-driven rules) Future opportunities / new things: -More direct hosting of graduate students carrying out instrument- oriented thesis work located directly at LLNL -Increased opportunities for young AO faculty to be hired at UC campuses ___________________________________________ From: David Koo Date: October 23, 2007 12:01:25 AM PDT To: Claire Max Cc: lward@ucolick.org, David Koo Subject: Re: Brief homework assignment for CfAO mtg Hi Claire: Sorry this is past your deadline, which I had not noticed till just now. I will try to get into telecon mode as soon as I can after my Senate committee meetings in the morning. Cheers, David Interests: High spatial resolution data from LGS AO imaging and IFU spectroscopy of distant galaxies. These data are obtained in fields already very well observed with Hubble and other telescopes spanning the full range of gamma ray to radio wavelengths (GOODS, GEMS, EGS, COSMOS). Under a multi-campus collaboration as part of CfAO, the Center for Adaptive Optics Treasury Surveys (CATS), the effort includes pushing and testing AO technology for distant galaxy research, developing simulation and other analysis tools designed for AO work that involves time and spatially varying PSF that may not be well determined; and providing the community top-quality data in a publicly available and friendly archive. To date, we have already undertaken pilot level imaging data of: a) distant galaxies of diverse luminosity, size, morphology, age, etc. b) distant active galactic nuclei (AGN) c) distant supernovae d) distant cluster of galaxies e) distant gravitational lenses We are now embarking on getting Keck LGS AO OSIRIS IFU spectroscopic data of distant galaxies. > 2) Future directions for the CfAO: Please list the two things that > have been most valuable to you about the NSF-sponsored CfAO in the > past, and two *new* things that you would like to see a UC IGPP > CfAO undertake in the future. [If you are a new participant, of > course, feel free to omit the first part of this question.] > Most valuable: Besides research support funds: 1) communication and cooperation among diverse pool of researchers, especially in regular telecons and also in formal workshops and retreats 2) My students have benefited from the summer schools and professional development programs. Future: 1) UC AO newsletter that informs UC astronomers of AO developments at Keck and elsewhere, accomplishments and progress among UC AO astronomers and users, workshops, schools, software tools, simulations, theoretical and technological discoveries, UC community data (e.g., from CATS) -- with one goal to link UC astronomers from different campuses into a more cohesive scientific pool of talent and advice/input for UCO. 2) Development branch that can coordiante the efforts among different campuses to tap into private funding sources that may help Keck reach its NGAO goals. ___________________________________________