Scott Dahm Appointed International Gemini Observatory’s Interim Director

January 23, 2024

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Scott Dahm as the International Gemini Observatory’s Interim Director. Nominated by NOIRLab’s Director Patrick McCarthy and confirmed by the Gemini Board, Dahm will be stepping into his new role in January 2024.

Dahm will succeed Jennifer Lotz who has served since 2018 as Director of Gemini. On 12 February 2024, Lotz will begin her five-year appointment as Director of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). AURA thanks Jennifer Lotz for her excellent tenure as Gemini Director.

Dahm is currently the Deputy Director of the International Gemini Observatory, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab. He has held this position since 9 January 2023. He received his PhD in astronomy from the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa under George Herbig, on the study of young stellar clusters. He subsequently served as an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at Caltech, a staff astronomer at W. M. Keck Observatory and as the Chief Scientist and acting Station Director for Naval Observatory, Flagstaff Station. Scott is also a retired US Naval Officer.

NOIRLab has launched a search for the next Gemini Director to lead Gemini Observatory through its next phase.

More information

NSF’s NOIRLab (National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory), the US center for ground-based optical-infrared astronomy, operates the International Gemini Observatory (a facility of NSF, NRC–Canada, ANID–Chile, MCTIC–Brazil, MINCyT–Argentina, and KASI–Republic of Korea), Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), the Community Science and Data Center (CSDC), and Vera C. Rubin Observatory (operated in cooperation with the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory). It is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with NSF and is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona. The astronomical community is honored to have the opportunity to conduct astronomical research on Iolkam Du’ag (Kitt Peak) in Arizona, on Maunakea in Hawai‘i, and on Cerro Tololo and Cerro Pachón in Chile. We recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence that these sites have to the Tohono O’odham Nation, to the Native Hawaiian community, and to the local communities in Chile, respectively.