TEDx Talks

Anthony (Tony) Beasley became the Director of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) on 21 May 2012. He succeeded Fred K.Y. Lo, who served as NRAO Director from 1 September 2002 through 20 May 2012.

Beasley received his Bachelor's Degree in Physics with First Class Honours, and a PhD in Astrophysics from the University of Sydney in 1986 and 1991, respectively. His doctoral thesis examined magnetic field generation and solar-stellar activity in post-main-sequence stars. After his completing his PhD, he joined NRAO first as a post-doc, then as a scientific staff member and senior manager in Socorro, NM and Charlottesville, VA. His scientific interests include non-thermal stellar radio emission, Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) techniques, radio supernovae, and astrometry of stellar/interstellar masers.

Beasley departed NRAO in 2000 for new challenges as the Project Manager for the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA), a University-based millimeter array funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and located at a high-altitude site in the Inyo National Forest of eastern California. He returned to NRAO in September 2004 as the ALMA Project Manager in the Joint ALMA Observatory in Santiago, Chile. During his tenure as ALMA Project Manager, Beasley led the ALMA construction project through multiple international reviews and a major re-baselining effort that ultimately led to National Science Board approval of a 40% funding increment.

Since 2000, Beasley's career has focused on the design, construction, operation, and management of major scientific research facilities. Prior to his appointment as NRAO Director, he served for more than four years as Chief Operations Officer and Project Manager for the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), a continental-scale observatory designed to provide scientists with 30 years of ecological data on the impacts of climate change, land use change, and invasive species on natural resources and biodiversity. NEON is a project of the NSF, in cooperation with many other US agencies and NGOs. Beasley built and led the NEON, Inc. team that developed the detailed project definition and produced the prototype and test site build that led to a NSF Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction award in 2011.

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