Jon Holtzman

Professor, Dept. of Astronomy , New Mexico State University

Address:
New Mexico State University
Box 30001 / Department 4500
1320 Frenger St.
Las Cruces, NM 88003

Phone: (575) 646-8181
FAX: (575) 646-1602
Email: holtz at nmsu.edu

MAPS TO GET TO THE ASTRONOMY DEPARTMENT

OVERVIEW

• Curriculum vitae
• I grew up in Baltimore MD, received my B.A. and M.S. at Wesleyan University, and got my Ph.D. at the University of California, Santa Cruz. I spent six years working as a research associate at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff AZ before moving to New Mexico State University in 1995.
• My main research interests are in stellar populations, galaxies, and cosmology. I also enjoy working with data analysis and astronomical instrumentation.
• I have been fortunate to have been involved with work on the Hubble Space Telescope: I was an associate member of the Instrument Definition Team for the original WF/PC camera, and a full member of the IDT for the WFPC2 camera. I was closely involved with the initial work on diagnosing the optical problem with the telescope and determining how it could be corrected with new instruments. I served on the Science Oversight Committee for the WFC3 camera that was installed in the HST in 2009.
• I've also been fortunate to have been involved with projects at the Apache Point Observatory , as Project Scientist for the ARC 3.5m telescope, and through involvement with several Sloan Digital Sky Survey projects, most notably the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE); I served as the Survey Scientist for the APOGEE-2 project of SDSS-IV, and am serving as Commissioning Scientist for SDSS-V. I also serve on the ARC Board of Governors.

RESEARCH

• ADS Search for refereed articles
• Metallicity distribution functions in Local Group dwarfs
• I've been involved in several aspects of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: 1) I was closely involved with the development of the APOGEE project, which obtained high resolution near-IR spectra of about 600,000 Milky Way stars. I served as the Survey Scientist for the SDSS-IV portion of APOGEE; 2) the SDSS-II supernova survey that was conducted 2005-2007; I developed techniques for the consistent measurement of SN brightnesses against arbiratry galaxy backgrounds using data obtained from different telescopes
• Resolved stellar populations photometry : One of my primary interests is in studying stellar populations in the Local Group through photometry of individual stars. Much of this work has been done using the Hubble Space Telescope. A large stellar photometry archive been constructed from all photometry done by the WFPC2 in the Local Group. I'm also working on a project to study the star formation history of the solar neighborhood by incorporating detailed chemical abundance measurements.
• External galaxies: I am interested in structural properties of galaxies, in particular disk galaxies and the nature of bulges; I've been involved in both photometric and spectroscopic studies. I've also been studying properties of galaxies as a function of their environment.
• Star clusters: A separate research interest is in the properties of young, compact, massive star clusters. This was motivated by our initial discovery of a population of bright blue clusters in NGC 1275 that helped to spark the development of this field.
• Cosmology: For my thesis, I did cosmological calculations using linear perturbation theory to calculate observational predictions for large scale structure and cosmic microwave background anisotropies. I still maintain a strong interest in understanding the interplay between cosmology and the formation and evolution of galaxies.
  • Information on a publicly available version of a PM code for cosmology by Anatoly Klypin and myself.

TEACHING

I have taught a variety of classes at NMSU:

• ASTR 110 (Introduction to Astronomy): our introductory class for undergraduates
• ASTR 535 (Observational Techniques) : a graduate class for first year graduate students
• ASTR 555 (Galaxies): graduate class
• ASTR 630 (Numerical and Statistical Methods): graduate class
• HON331 (Using a Telescope: Observation, Technology, and Analysis in Astronomical Research): an undergraduate honors class where students complete a small research project using the NMSU 1m telescope

TELESCOPE PROJECTS

• Apache Point Observatory (APO) . NMSU has a 15% share of the 3.5m telescope. I have served as the Project Scientist for the 3.5m.
• NMSU 1m at APO. NMSU also operates a 1m telescope. I have spent a large amount of time getting this telescope to work. I had it runnning in a fully robotic mode, with fiber feed to the SDSS APOGEE instrument; it been used for photometric monitoring of various variable stars, supernovae followup, etc. However, with COVID and the reduced availability of APOGEE in SDSS-V, the facility is not currently operating.
• NMSU Tortugas Mt. 24"

XVISTA

I maintain the worldwide distribution of the xvista astronomical image reduction and analysis package. For more information consult the XVISTA home page .

Contact

You can email me at holtz at nmsu.edu

Back to NMSU's ASTRONOMY hompage