New eScience Director Andrew Connolly

We are delighted to announce that Astronomy Professor Andrew Connolly has been selected as the new Director of the eScience Institute. Andy has been involved since the early days of eScience as a member of the original Steering Committee and as a member of the Executive Committee since its inception in 2013. Andy has played an active role in the evolution of data science on the UW campus and has a well-articulated vision for the future of data science research and education at the UW. Andy is also a world-renowned astronomer who has been deeply involved in the design and construction of the Vera C Rubin Observatory, which will undertake the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), one of the largest and most ambitious astronomical surveys of the night sky. LSST will begin full science operations in 2022. Andy is also the Founding Director of the DiRAC Institute in the Department of Astronomy. Created in 2016, DiRAC is a data science institute focused on using the massive and complex data sets from surveys such as the LSST to understand how our universe formed and evolved. Welcome Andy!