It is with great pleasure, we are announcing Peter Frinchaboy as the new Project Scientist for MSE. Welcome Peter!

Peter is a Professor at Texas Christian University in the Department of Physics & Astronomy.  He has served in multiple leadership roles as part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) -III, -IV, and -V over the 17+ years. In SDSS-III, he served as Survey Operations Scientist for the Apache Point Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE). Peter was significantly involved with the survey planning, review, and execution of all sub-surveys of SDSS-IV (eBOSS, MaNGA, and APOGEE-2 surveys) as the SDSS-IV Survey Coordinator. He has also served as part of the SDSS Management and Collaboration committees, the Change Control Board, and the Committee On INclusion in SDSS (COINS).

Peter’s research focuses on the dynamical and chemical evolution of the Milky Way and its satellites, with a particular focus on star clusters.  He currently leads the Open Cluster Chemical Abundances and Mapping (OCCAM) survey that primarily utilizes the ESA Gaia, SDSS/APOGEE, and SDSS-V/Milky Way Mapper (MWM) surveys to measure Galactic abundance gradients and calibrate ‘chemical clocks’, as well as to provide effective survey calibration, currently for SDSS and in the future for MSE.  He has also worked on near-field cosmology by studying the extended structures and tidal tails of dwarf spheroidal galaxies around the Milky Way.

Peter earned a BS degree in physics, then moved to the University of Virginia for an MS and PhD in astronomy.  After his PhD, he was awarded an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow which was conducted at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.