Our first decade: Darío Hernández

Jun 15, 2023 | News | 1 comment

Tags: ALMA

When Darío arrived in January 2012, things were very different.
The observatory was in its construction phase, and it barely had 30 antennas. Our current residence did not yet exist, so the rooms were located in the old camp. Even the casino was getting small.

“There were the three vendors building antennas, so there were a lot of people working on the site, of many nationalities. In the casino you could hear several different languages, like a Tower of Babel”, recalls Darío Hernández, our Electronics Technician I.

He got to know ALMA through a friend of his who worked here and after applying he was selected for the BackEnd group, which at that time was part of the Instrument Group.

“I immediately felt very welcomed and got up to speed with the equipment we work with, specifically in the radio frequency (RF) and photonics area,” recalls Darío about his first days with his co-workers.

Among all that he has experienced at ALMA in these eleven years, a milestone that especially marked him was obtaining the first image of a black hole, where our observatory was a central piece in this collaboration and astronomical feat.

He also considers his personal growth here: “On a professional level I have learned many things, not only within my area but also about how the observatory works as a whole. And on a personal level, my family has also advanced. We are finishing raising our two children. One is already a professional (surgeon) and the second has only a couple of years left to graduate from civil engineering.”

After a decade, Darío sees the consolidation of our work. “I think ALMA has already reached maturity as an observatory in these ten years and is currently operating at full capacity in terms of observations and discoveries,” he concludes.

1 Comment

  1. Martin Diaz

    Grande Darío!! Un abrazo!!

    Reply

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