PLUG Meeting for March 12th
This month we'll be treated to PLUG's second Space
themed night.
Space Night 2
Description:
Join PLUG for a space panel featuring members of the MASTCAM-Z team
discussing the roles of Free Software and open standards in their
projects and the open science they're investigating as part of their
missions.
Based at ASU, the panel members have worked on projects such as the
MASTCAM-Z and MASTCAM projects for Mars rovers, Lunar Reconnaissance
Orbiter and the Psyche Mission.
Video from previous Space Night panel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnxge96YO3A
Panelists:
Ernest Cisneros
Ernest received a Bachelor's of Science in Geology, from the
University of Texas at El Paso (1989). After a stint in graduate
school at Northern Arizona University, studying the metamorphic
history of the Old Woman Mountains, he began a 27 year career
combining his love of geology and computers. Ernest has worked at
the USGS in Flagstaff, Duke University, Northwestern University and
most recently at Arizona State University. Ernest has supported
science and data processing for Clementine, MSI on NEAR, CRISM on
MRO, MDIS on MESSENGER, Pancam on MER. His most recent work was
developing the Science Operations Center for the Lunar
Reconnaissance Orbiter, supporting multispectral data processing of
MASTCAM images from MSL, developing the ground data system for
MASTCAM-Z instrument on the Mars 2020 rover, and developing the
Science Data Center for the Psyche Mission. During his career,
Ernest has seen Linux grow from "just something we are playing with
for SysAdmin stuff" into a mainstay in server rooms, desktops and at
home, tackling a wide-variety of roles. He has used a variety of
Linux flavors: Slackware (installed from floppies), Redhat, Debian,
CentOS, SuSE, and Ubuntu (most recently), installed on everything
from SBC (Raspberry Pi and Tinkerboards), Intel/AMD PC's, PowerPC,
RISC and a variety of other architectures.
Kristen Paris
Kristen is the Down-link Operations Lead for the Mastcam-Z camera
for the Mars2020 rover mission and previously worked with the Lunar
Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera also at ASU. Kristen has been using
Linux-based systems for NASA Instrument Operations for over 10
years. Usually she uses her Linux-y powers for good, but sometimes
her powers have other (unintended) consequences. Kristen automated
myself out of a job and enjoyed it! She has also brought a 200+node
computing cluster to a screeching halt (know if 3rd-party software
is secretly trying to be "helpful" and know how to disable these
"helpful" features). Kristen loves Space, enjoys computers (when
they do what she intends for them to do), and considers herself a
Danger Linux Power User.
Corrine Rojas
Corrine is a NASA Mars 2020 Rover Mastcam-Z Instrument Operations
Engineer based at Arizona State University (ASU). She is a science
team collaborator for the Mars Science Laboratory, formerly at the
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera. Her specialty is spacecraft
operations (orbiters and rovers), research in planetary geology, and
creating all kinds of maps, particularly 3D terrain maps that are
out of this world. She has a BSc in Geography and Geographic
Information Science from ASU. She was born and raised in Phoenix, AZ
to loving immigrant parents from Durango, Mexico. In college, she
was a Shirley G. Schmitz Foundation Scholar for entrepreneurs;
participated in an ASU-funded start-up DemocraSeed in which she
mentored high school-aged kids in a rural AZ town about creative
problem solving issues in their community using design thinking; and
interned at Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the Curiosity rover
mission operations team. She is currently on the board of the
Society of Women in Space Exploration, and on the leadership council
of Latinas in Earth and Planetary Sciences (Geolatinas). She does
not consider herself a technical computer science person, though she
is slowly coming to terms that her job is 80% bash scripting to
manipulate a ton of data, and you kinda have to have a good idea of
what you’re doing in order to spare your perfectly obedient hardware
from being smashed by a 2x4.
Nathan Cluff
Nathan is the Lead Systems Administrator for the Mastcam and
Mastcam-Z cameras on the Mars Science Laboratory and Mars 2020
rovers in addition to supporting operations for various other
missions such as the Luna Polar Hydrogen Mapper (LunaH-map) mission.
Nathan has been involved in various Linux administrative positions
for the last 18 years and has been in the School of Earth and Space
Exploration at ASU for the last 4 years.
The meeting will start at 7pm at The Desert Breeze Substation.
People start arriving as early as 6pm, so if you would like to help
setup and/or chat for a while, arrive a little early.
We will go for food (usually to BJs at the Chandler Fashion
Center Mall) after the meeting so we can chat with each other
comfortably. Please feel free to join us. Please come even if you
aren't hungry, the food is not mandatory.
See you there,
Brian Cluff