NSF director visits ALMA
17 January, 2012 / Read time: 2 minutes
Subra Suresh, the director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), visited the ALMA Observatory facilities in Santiago on Thursday, January 12. NSF, a U.S. government agency that promotes scientific research, is one of the three agencies that funds ALMA from North America, and along with agencies in Europe and East Asia, make up the ALMA global partnership.
During his first visit to this country, Mr. Suresh said that Chile is a strategic partner for the United States in several fields of science, and particularly in astronomy, where the U.S. funds a number of observatories. “Chile will be home to 70% of the world's observatories,” he said.
Attending a reception in his honor were the U.S. Ambassador to Chile, Alejandro D. Wolff; the President of Associated Universities Inc. (AUI), Ethan Schreier; the Director of Fundación Chile, Álvaro Fischer; and several other directors of observatories in Chile, among others.
Ethan Schreier congratulated the ALMA director, Thijs de Graauw, and the observatory's employees who were present at the ceremony for the “amazing achievements made” even while construction is still ongoing. He also stated that astronomy represents an excellent opportunity for universities, industry and Chilean society to develop partnerships in the fields of instrumentation, computing, telecommunications and education.
