Thinking that health is a priority for everyone, but sometimes external help is needed, our Safety department led an no-smoking campaign for all ALMA staff and our contractors who wanted to quit smoking. The incentive? If they succeeded in overcoming three months of abstinence, they could even be rewarded with a bicycle. Thus, in the first stage of this...
From turning on the light in a room and running a coffee maker to maintaining the antennas and correlator operations at OSF and AOS.... for everything to work as usual there has to be a team behind it working day and night: that's the Power Group. “All this never appears in the daily and monthly ALMA report because its...
The Advanced Technology ALMA Correlator (ATAC), the centerpiece of WSU's new era, has just passed its Preliminary Design Review (PDR). This means that the observatory's new brain, which will be able to analyze more data from the antenna receivers, is going from strength to strength for the future of ALMA. While Band 2 had previously had a PDR, aligned...
The newly enacted Law 21.643, also known as the Karin Law, aims to eliminate workplace harassment, sexual harassment, and violence in the workplace. This law came into effect on August 1 in Chile. The regulation, in line with Convention 190 of the International Labor Organization (ILO) on violence and harassment at work, modifies the regulatory framework that should govern...
With 12 years at ALMA, you'd think Andrea had seen it all. But when she received one of the awards at the last Fundamental Statements 2023 awards, that changed: "It was a mix of feelings that included surprise, gratitude, and excitement". Those were the emotions that went through Andrea Araya, our Lead Document Specialist, who was recognized for the...
When Emiliano woke up, his curtains were open and the sun was already up. He got up ready to have breakfast, until he realized that no one was awake because it was five o'clock in the morning. Of course, he was about to participate in the SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation conference, organized this year in Yokohama, Japan.“That's when...