Brian Grefenstette
UVEX Payload Manager at Caltech
Pasadena, California, United States
Summary
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Senior🎓
Top SchoolBrian Grefenstette is a research scientist and instrument manager with 11 years of experience leading calibration, payload development, and mission science for high-energy astrophysics projects. Based in Pasadena, he currently manages the UVEX payload at Caltech while serving as NuSTAR Instrument Scientist, combining hands-on technical oversight with schedule and subcontract management. His background spans detector calibration, pipeline development, cross-calibration with major X-ray observatories, and building airborne and satellite instruments dating back to his Ph.D. work at UC Santa Cruz. He has led multiple NuSTAR teams (calibration, stray light, and targeted searches) and mentors early-career researchers, showing a rare mix of operational leadership and research productivity. Notably, he designed and flew the ADELE hard X-ray detector on a high-altitude research jet and produced early population studies of terrestrial gamma-ray flashes. He brings practical systems engineering to complex space missions while maintaining active scientific and technical stewardship.
12 years of coding experience
20 years of employment as a software developer
University of California Santa CruzB.S., Physics, B.S., Physics at Stanford University
Stackoverflow
1reputation
0reached
0answers
0questions
Github Skills (34)
fourier-transform10
catalog10
sun10
python-scripts10
astronomy9
spectral9
python9
calibration9
solar9
idl9
data-analysis8
telescope8
blackhole8
xspec7
astrophysics7
Programming languages (5)
Github contributions (5)
duet-mission/duet-astro
Apr 2019 - Aug 2019
Repo for the Dynamic Ultraviolet Explorer Telescope
Contributions:3 releases, 120 PRs, 74 pushes in 3 months
ultravioletpythonexplorertelescope
bwgref/straycats
Aug 2020 - Sep 2025
Repo for tracking the NuSTAR Straylight Catalog
Contributions:145 pushes, 9 branches, 1 tag in 5 years 1 month
catalognustartracking
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