Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope

About

Meet the Team

The Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope (GAVRT) project is a partnership between NASA/JPL and the Lewis Center for Educational Research that works to educate individuals all around the world on radio astronomy. It strives to inspire and educate students and citizen scientists through their active contributions to professional science.

Our experts are passionate about inspiring and educating the next generation of scientists through hands-on, real-world scientific research. Meet the team of exceptional individuals who make this incredible program possible:

Dr. Lisa Lamb, President/CEO, Lewis Center

Dr. Lisa Lamb is the President/CEO of the Lewis Center for Educational Research and serves as the Lead Educator for the GAVRT Program. She has been at the Lewis Center since 2008 and has served as a teacher, Middle School Vice Principal, K-12 Principal, and Chief Academic Officer. Lisa began her career in Barstow Unified School District as a teacher and administrator, working with a largely underserved student population. In 2005, she was honored as the Walmart Teacher of the Year. In 2022, she received Victor Valley College (VVC) Foundation’s Distinguished Service in Education Award. She was recently honored as a 2023 Education Medal of Honor recipient for San Bernardino County. Lisa earned her doctorate in Organizational Leadership from Grand Canyon University and holds master’s degrees in Educational Administration from California State University San Bernardino and Curriculum and Instruction from Chapman University. Her bachelor’s degree is in Liberal Studies from California Baptist University. Lisa is actively involved in the Charter School Development Center (CSDC), CSDC Advocacy Affinity Group, San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools’ Global Connections Program, and NASA’s Citizen Science Network. Lisa serves on the boards of the Greater High Desert Chamber of Commerce and the California Association of Health and Education Linked Professions. Lisa married her high school sweetheart, JR, in 1993. Together, they raised two amazing daughters, Morgan and Madison. They have been active members of the High Desert community since JR was first stationed at Ft. Irwin in 1994.

Ryan Dorcey, Director of Information Technology, Lewis Center

Ryan has worked at the Lewis Center for Educational Research since 2002. Throughout his tenure, he has held various roles including Systems Programmer and Manager of Global Operations. He is currently serving as the Director of Information Technology and Global Programs. In his role, he is responsible for all educational technology initiatives at the Academy for Academic Excellence and Norton Science and Language Academy, as well as the Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope (GAVRT) partnership with the LCER and JPL/NASA. He actively supports NASA/JPL missions such as Juno and GAVRT campaigns including: Black Hole Patrol, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), Jupiter Quest and Solar Patrol.

Dr. Joseph Lazio, Project Scientist, JPL/ DSN

Dr. Joseph Lazio is the Interplanetary Network Directorate Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. The Interplanetary Network Directorate manages the Deep Space Network for NASA's Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Program. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University, was a U.S. National Research Council Research Associate at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, and was a Radio Astronomer on the staff of the U.S. NRL, before joining JPL. He is the Project Scientist for the Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment (SunRISE). He has served as Project Scientist for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA); the Deputy Director of the Lunar University Network for Astrophysics Research (LUNAR); and as Project Scientist for the U.S. Virtual Astronomical Observatory. He observes routinely with the world's premier ground-based radio telescopes, including the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array and the Very Long Baseline Array.

Dr. Steve Levin, GAVRT Lead Scientist, JPL

Steve Levin has worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory since 1990. During that time, his research interests have included the Cosmic Microwave Background, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), measuring magnetic fields in star-forming regions, looking for near-Earth asteroids, modeling radio emission from Jupiter’s radiation belts, and microwave observations of Jupiter. He has done radio astronomy from large radio telescopes, mountain top research stations, the South Pole, high-altitude balloons, and spacecraft. He is currently the Project Scientist for Juno, Lead Co-I for the Juno Microwave Radiometer, and Lead Scientist for the Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope project (GAVRT). He has co-authored over 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers. He was also an elected member of the board of education of Culver City Unified School District from 2013-2022, is currently a member of the board of the Lewis Center for Educational Research, and is a frequent speaker on science topics at schools and public venues.

Dr. Marin M. Anderson, Research Scientist, JPL

Marin M. Anderson, PhD, is a research scientist and astronomer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Project Scientist for the Caltech Owens Valley Radio Observatory Long Wavelength Array (OVRO-LWA). She received her B.A. in Astronomy and Physics from the University of California, Berkeley, and her PhD and M.S. in Astrophysics from the California Institute of Technology. She was a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow at JPL before joining as a research scientist in 2022. She has conducted research in the fields of astrophysics and radio astronomy for more than a decade. Her interests encompass a wide range of astrophysical phenomena, from explosive extragalactic events (including the first radio-discovered tidal disruption event), to radio bursts from nearby stars and exoplanets, to magnetic activity from our very own Sun. In addition to research, she enjoys sharing her enthusiasm for astronomy with the public and mentoring new scientists.

Dr. Thangasamy (Velu) Velusamy, GAVRT scientist, JPL

Since 1992 (Velu) Velusamy has been working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Before coming to JPL, he was Director of the Ooty Radio Astronomy Observatory, in India. His research interests include: Star formation –structure & evolution of star-forming interstellar molecular clouds & cores and young stellar objects. He has over forty years of experience in astrophysics and is author, or co-author, on over 100 research papers. He has extensive experience and expertise in single dish (DSN) & interferometry (VLA & OVRO) observations and image processing. He has worked with a wide range of instruments from the radio to optical: DSN, OVRO, VLA, Spitzer, Herschel and recently, with MIRO (on Rosetta). He began his research at JPL working with the DSN antennas to study star- formation in molecular clouds, in particular the “infall” of molecular gas on to forming stars. For the last 3 years he has been supporting the GAVRT Solar Patrol and Jupiter synchrotron radiation monitoring. Interestingly, he began his career in radio astronomy working with the 1963 solar eclipse data at 8 GHz and currently he is working with the GAVRT data observed during the 2023 & 2024 eclipses.

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