ann21047 — Announcement
US-ELTP Director and Former NOAO Director Sidney Wolff Retires
19 November 2021: The Project Director of the US Extremely Large Telescope Program (US-ELTP), Sidney Wolff, has announced her retirement, leaving behind a legacy of nearly fifty years leading the United States’s top ground-based observatories. Stepping up as the new Project Director of the US-ELTP is NOIRLab’s Deputy Director, Beth Willman. The US-ELTP is a collaboration between NOIRLab, the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) and the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), coordinating efforts to build the next-generation of 25–30-meter aperture ground-based telescopes, one in each hemisphere. The US-ELTP recently came top in the list of priorities for ground-based observatories in the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Astro2020 Decadal Survey, which recommends the direction of US astronomy over the next ten years. Wolff has shepherded the fledgling US-ELTP through its critical formative years, preparing it for the Astro2020 report and establishing a firm foundation for working with the National Science Foundation (NSF), both of …