NTCO AGM 2019
The third NTCO Annual General Meeting (AGM) was held at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory (DRAO) in Kaleden, BC (outside Penticton) from November 27-29, 2019. Lasting a total of three days, the event included poster sessions by NTCO students, in-person tours of the Synthesis Telescope, the Anechoic Chamber Screened room, the Digital Lab and the RFI Demo Lab, and 19 talks by Industry representatives members from four different universities and DRAO. The AGM also held a Professional Skills Development workshop on goal setting and management for NTCO graduate students (but available to all attendees) and networking opportunities for students with social events like curling at Penticton Curling Club, catered lunches, sponsored dinners, and an Open Discussion session.
Talks
AGM attendees were invited to present a 15-20 minute talk during the AGM. These are listed below in the order in which they were presented.
| Topic | Spokesperson | Affiliation |
| Welcome to DRAO | Michael Rupen and Tom Baker | DRAO |
| NTCO Overview | Kim Venn | UVic |
| ALMA Science | Brenda Matthews | HIA |
| Incoherent Clocking | Brent Carlson | DRAO |
| Schneider Electric internship | Jared Keown | UVic, Ericsson/Sweden |
| Research at INO | Denis Dufour | INO |
| Composite Radio Reflectors | Gordon Lacy | DRAO |
| Miovision Internship | Nathan Brunetti | McMaster |
| GIRMOS | Suresh Sivanadam | UToronto |
| Gemini Observatory internship | Viraja Chandrashekhar Khatu | UWO |
| SKA project updates | Sonja Vrcic | DRAO |
| MDA involvement in SKA | Nicolas Loubser | MDA |
| Zeeman effect in 21-cm radio emission | Tim Robishaw | DRAO |
| FLIR internship | Tarun Kumar | UVic |
| Astronomy Research at COPL | Simon Thibault | LavalU |
| Science with the ALMA archive and ARCADE | Chris Wilson | McMaster |
| Stars to Satcom: DRAO & SED | Justin Gerein | SED |
| Astronomy instrumentation at ABB | Frederic Grandmont | ABB |
| Radio Frequency Interference | Stephen Harrison | DRAO |
| Detector Technologies at NuVu | Olivier Daigle | NuVu |
| Canada's Stethoscope on the Sun: Space Weather | Ken Tapping | DRAO |
Professional Skills Development Workshop
A Professional Skills Development Workshop on Goal Setting and Time Management was held on Wednesday, November 27th at the Okanagan College Penticton Campus. While attendance was mandatory for all NTCO graduate students, undergrads and other attendees were welcome to join.
The workshop taught attendees how to gain a methodology to tie all personal objectives and aspirations into a planned approach and to match resources and timelines with personal goals. It focussed on teaching how to use time effectively so as to stay motivated and prevent feeling overwhelmed. The planning and goal-setting strategies provided in the workshop ensure any time invested results in solid and measurable results.
The learning outcomes of this workshop included:
- Identifying issues preventing effective time management
- Identifying ways to enhance time management
- Understand the effects of stress on productivity
- Develop more effective planning and goal setting strategies
Photos
Student Posters
| Poster Title | Student | University |
| Quantum yield estimation for an electron-multiplying CCD from photon counting test data | Robert Gleisinger | University of Victoria |
| Toward a Robust, Simulation-Trained Galaxy Merger Stage Classification Model | Robert W. Bickley | University of Victoria |
| The high-resolution fibre-fed velocity spectrograph: VROOMM | Farbod Jahandar | University of Montreal |
| Characterization of Image Slicers | Caleb Bayard | Université Laval |
| OPERA vs DRAGraces: Who would win? | Shunyuan Mao | University of Victoria |
| Molecular Gas Properties of the Early Merger Arp 240 reveals ULIRG-like Properties | Hao He | McMaster University |
| The evolution of a cryogenic range-resolved interferometer | Adam Christiansen | University of Lethbridge |
| Space-based detection simulation of resident space object with an EMCCD | Maxime Vernier | Université Laval |
| CHIME: A Radio Interferometer and GPU Correlator for Probing Dark Energy | Ian Tretyakov | University of Toronto |
| An EMCCD for Wavefront Sensing at 3k FPS | William Thompson | University of Victoria |
| A New Thermodynamic Approach On The ADP | Maxime Royer | Université Laval |
| Nifty4Gemini: A Data Reduction Pipeline for Gemini-North’s Near-Infrared Integral Field Spectrometer | Collin Kielty | University of Victoria |
| The Voyages of StarNet: Deep Learning of Stellar Spectra in all Wavelength Regimes | Spencer Bialek | University of Victoria |
| Design of an Optical system for tip tilt alignment of camera sensor and characterization of dust on camera glass. | Tarun Kumar | University of Victoria |
| GNIRS Cross-Dispersion Python-based Pipeline (GNIRS-Pype) | Viraja Khatu | Western University |
