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IVS2010 Directing Board Elections

Nominees for At-Large Positions

This page provides information about the nominees for At-Large positions on the IVS Directing Board. The nominees are listed alphabetically by their family names. The At-Large members will be elected by the IVS Directing Board.

Jesús Gómez-González
National Geographical Institute of Spain (IGN), Madrid, Spain
Prof. Gómez-González is the Deputy Director for Astronomy, Geodesy and Geophysics at the National Geographical Institute (IGN) of Spain, the agency that operates the 40-m radiotelescope at Yebes. He has been an IVS Associate Member since the inception of the service. Prof. Gómez-González joined the IGN in 1974 when the Yebes Observatory was created and served as its first director. In 1989 he became director of the National Astronomical Observatory, and in 2002 he became IGN's Deputy Director of Astronomy, Geodesy and Geophysics. He has been instrumental for the growth of the Observatory and was the main initiator of instrumental radio astronomy (including geodetic VLBI) in Spain. It is due to his efforts that the Yebes Observatory today has very experienced staff and state-of-the-art instrumentation and laboratories. In the last several years he has promoted the development of Space Geodesy research and development at IGN, which has culminated in the establishment of the network of geodynamical and space stations in the Atlantic (RAEGE), a project made in cooperation with Portugal.

Alexander Ipatov
Institute of Applied Astronomy (IAA) of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), St. Petersburg, Russia
Alexander Ipatov was born on the 14th of April 1945 in Belorussia. He graduated from the radioelectronic faculty of the Leningrad Politechnical Institute in 1970 as a specialist in radiophysics. In 1997 he was given the academic status of Doctor of Sciences and in 2005 the rank of professor. In 2004 he was awarded with a prize of the Russian Government for the development and creation of the new generation radio telescope for space research. Alexander Ipatov is a vice-director of the Institute of Applied Astronomy RAS since 1988. In 2001 he got the status of professor at the department of radio physics of St. Petersburg State Polytechnic University. He is a professor of the radio astronomy department of the St. Petersburg Electrotechnical University since 2003. Alexander Ipatov is a member of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the International VLBI Service for Geodesy and Astronomy (IVS), and the European Astronomical Society (EAS). He is a member of the Scientific Council on Astronomy RAS, the Scientific Council on PNT RAS, and the Russian Scientific Council URSI. Alexander Ipatov is an expert in the fields of radiophysics, radio astronomy, radio interferometry, and radio astronomy engineering. He is the author and co-author of more than 200 publications including 2 monographs.

Shinobu Kurihara
Geospational Information Authority of Japan (GSI), Tsukuba, Japan
After earning a B.A. in Physics from Niigata University in 1998, Shinobu Kurihara has been working for GSI with the exception of two years during which he worked at the Ministry headquarters. He has been involved in geodetic VLBI operations for 9.5 years including VLBI observation, correlation, analysis, and other related work. In recent years, he has been the responsible official at the Tsukuba 32-m VLBI station. Recently, he played a significant role in the success of the Ultra-rapid dUT1 experiments. Shinobu has served as an at-large member on the IVS Directing Board since October 2010 when he replaced Kazuhiro Takashima due to illness.

Xiang Liu
Urumqi Observatory of the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC), Urumqi, China
Xiang Liu is the Head of the VLBI Science and Operations Group of Urumqi Observatory. He obtained his VLBI education as graduate student at Shanghai Astronomical Observatory from 1989-1992 majoring in VLBI astrophysics. He moved to Urumqi Observatory in 1993, where he has been working on VLBI observations since the construction of the 25-m antenna during the same year. In 2002 he earned his Ph.D. in VLBI astrophysics. Liu has been the VLBI Friend at the station for many years. He currently works with students on geodetic VLBI data reduction and is promoting geodetic VLBI research at the site.

Jonathan Quick
Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO), Hartebeesthoek, South Africa
Dr Jonathan Quick graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand with a BSc (Hons) in 1988 and completed a PhD in theoretical nuclear physics at the same university in 1990. He joined the VLBI group at HartRAO in 1991 and now holds the positions of VLBI Operations Manager and Programme Leader: Instrumentation and Computing at HartRAO. He has close to twenty years of experience in geodetic and astronomical VLBI. He is well versed in all aspects of VLBI station instrumentation from receivers to recording terminals and is particularly knowledgable about the field system software, having worked closely with GSFC. He recently led the project to integrate HartRAO into the e_EVN operations to the stage where HartRAO can now sustain e_VLBI rates of 1 Gb/s. He is currently leading a project to convert the HartRAO 15-m Experimental Design Model (XDM) antenna, a prototype for the Karoo Array telescope, into a dual band S/X antenna with cryogenic receivers to support geodetic VLBI and reduce the load on the 26-m antenna.

Fengchun Shu
Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (SHAO) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Shanghai, China
Fengchun Shu received a B.Sc. degree in astronomy from Nanjing University in 1992 and a Ph.D. degree from Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2008. After he joined the VLBI group of SHAO in 1992, he has worked for three years as a station operation scientist at Seshan25 and obtained some experience with geodetic VLBI data analysis. Since 1999 he has been involved in a project to develop the VLBI correlation technique in China. As an important contribution to this effort, he has developed a software tool for satellite tracking, dynamic scheduling, and correlator model generation, which has been successfully used in the navigation of the Chinese lunar satellites. In recent years, he has been a key person for the development of the Chinese VLBI Data Acquisition System (CDAS). His responsibilities included fringe testing of CDAS and upgrading the Shanghai Correlator for geodetic applications. Presently, he is the Project Manager of the domestic geodetic VLBI observing project, a part of the Crustal Movement Observation Network of China, and he also serves as contact person for stations of the satellite VLBI tracking system of the Chinese space program.

Vladimir Zharov
Sternberg Astronomical Institute (SAI), Moscow, Russia
Vladimir Zharov is a professor at Lomonosov Moscow State University and holds the Chair of Celestial Mechanics, Astrometry and Gravimetry of the Faculty of Physics. He is the Head of the Laboratory of Gravimetry of the Sternberg Astronomical Institute. He performed his doctoral work under the supervision of Prof. Leonid Matveenko and obtained a Doctor of Sciences in 1983. Vladimir Zharov's scientific work has mainly been concentrated on the study of Earth rotation. His doctoral thesis on the effect of atmospheric tides on the Earth rotation parameters (in particular, nutation) resulted in the development of a new nutation theory. He and his group have developed and maintain the ARIADNA software for the calculation of all types of VLBI products and for testing new ideas. Current and future work is connected with the Radioastron mission, a space–ground radio interferometer. One of the challenges of this mission is to precisely position the space radio telescope. Prospective work could be the tracking of the GNSS satellites with VLBI. It is also planned to build a VLBI2010 radio telescope at the new observatory near Kislovodsk (Russia). This observatory will be used for both scientific and educational purposes.