[mmaimcal] Appointment of ALMA Project Manager

[Al Wootten]

The ALMA Director is pleased to announce that Dr. Richard Kurz has been 
appointed Project Manager of the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter 
Array (ALMA) effective November 1st, 2008.  Dr. Kurz's appointment 
follows a search by an international committee.

Dr. Kurz has extensive management experience in space and astronomical 
projects.  He has been serving as Interim European Project Manager since 
February 2008.  From 1999 to 2004, Dr. Kurz was ALMA European Project 
Manager at the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the 
Southern Hemisphere (ESO) in Germany.  At ESO, he organized the European 
side of the ALMA collaboration.  Dr. Kurz was Project Manager of the 
Gemini 8-Meter Telescopes and, before that, managed a variety of NASA 
and Department of Defense space programs while at TRW Space and Defense
and NASA.

Dr. Kurz holds a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California at 
Berkeley.  He has published many scientific and technical papers on high 
energy elementary particle physics and presented ALMA at international 
conferences throughout the last decade.

The Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA), an 
international astronomy facility, is a partnership of Europe, Japan and 
North America in cooperation with the Republic of Chile.  The ALMA 
Board, consisting of members representing the partners, has created the 
Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) in Chile. The JAO is responsible for the
overall leadership and management of construction, commissioning and 
operations of ALMA. ALMA is funded in Europe by the European 
Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, in 
Japan by the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) in 
cooperation with the Academia Sinica in Taiwan and in North America by 
the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in cooperation with the 
National Research Council of Canada (NRC).  ALMA construction and 
operations are led on behalf of Europe by ESO, on behalf of Japan by the 
National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) and on behalf of North 
America by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), which is 
managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI).