Pasadena-Based Giant Magellan Telescope Names New President

The international science project headquartered in Pasadena that is building one of the world’s largest telescopes has named a new leader as it enters a key phase of construction and funding.

The GMTO Corporation announced Monday that astronomer Daniel T. Jaffe has been appointed president of the GMTO Corporation, the Pasadena-based nonprofit that manages construction of the $2.6 billion Giant Magellan Telescope in Chile’s Atacama Desert.

Jaffe, a University of Texas at Austin professor, takes over a project that is about 40% complete, with a final design review scheduled for June and federal funding decisions expected to follow.

Although the telescope is being built at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, the project is run from Pasadena, where GMTO oversees design, fundraising and future operations for the multinational consortium.

Jaffe succeeds Robert Shelton, who announced his retirement last year after leading the project since 2017. During Shelton’s tenure, the consortium expanded to 16 member institutions and secured more than $1 billion in private investment, according to the organization.

GMTO said Jaffe was selected after an international search. He has been closely involved with the project as the builder of one of its key instruments, the Giant Magellan Telescope Near-Infrared Spectrograph, and is known for developing optical technologies used on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

The National Science Foundation advanced the Giant Magellan Telescope into its Final Design Phase last year, a major step toward eligibility for federal construction funding.

When completed, the telescope’s seven large mirrors are expected to produce images far sharper than existing observatories, enabling studies of distant planets, dark matter and the origins of the chemical elements.