Tony Tyson 
University of California, Davis

My name is Tony Tyson (officially J. A. Tyson) and I am a professor of physics at UC Davis. I arrived at UC Davis in 2004 after three decades at Bell Labs, originally as an experimentalist in condensed matter physics. However, most of my career has been devoted to experimental astrophysics and cosmology. As a physics undergrad at Stanford I worked briefly on the MkIII accelerator on campus and the new "two mile accelerator." Recently I have renewed my connection with SLAC through multiple interactions with the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology.

Connecting particle physics and cosmology, a key mission emerging at SLAC is an experiment to probe the physics of dark energy and dark matter: the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. This facility will be more than a telescope – 200 petabytes of data from its 3.2 gigpixel camera will be stored and analyzed for a wide range of science including the physics of dark energy, dark matter, and high energy astrophysics. Our LSST project is fueled by a very productive collaboration of scientists and engineers from particle physics and astronomy. Twenty two institutions have joined the LSST project. SLAC is the lead institution developing the LSST camera (others include Brookhaven National Lab, Lawrence Livermore National Lab, and UC Davis.) As director of the overall LSST project, I travel to SLAC frequently. I also interface with SLAC management and federal funding agencies and am involved in public outreach efforts nationally.

The success of a national lab like SLAC is dependent on many factors, including the working environment for scientists and engineers, success of its programs, collaborations outside the lab, and outreach -- particularly to Washington. Serving on SLUO would give me an exciting opportunity to collaborate across interdisciplinary boundaries to help ensure SLAC’s future. One element of that would be connections I have made in related fields like photon science; so I could be of service in interfacing with that parallel committee. My related service in the past includes membership on the Users Committee for the astronomer’s equivalent national lab: NOAO. I have served on several visiting committees to national labs and federal agencies. I was a member of the Fermilab Director’s Search Committee, the URA Visiting Committee for Fermilab, the NRC Quarks to the Cosmos Committee, the executive committee of the NRC Board on Physics and Astronomy, and the NRC Physics Overview – 2000 Decadal Survey for Physics.

I am enthusiastic about the future of SLAC in this fusion of particle physics, cosmology, and high energy astrophysics. Working on the SLUO Executive Committee would be a good way to help that happen.