Chris Pearson

ESA support Astronomer for the AKARI Mission
Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan

I completed my Ph.D. in Cosmology and Galaxy evolution at Imperial
College, where I contributed to both the ISO-ELAIS survey planning
and the first sub-millimetre surveys with the SCUBA instrument on
the JCMT. I have been involved with the infrared AKARI mission
since 1997 during a 2 month scholarship to Japan around the end of
my Ph.D.

Since then I been living in Japan for 6 out of the last 8 years
collaborating with the Japanese on the AKARI All-Sky Survey and
other deeper surveys at near-far-infrared wavelengths and am the
only non-Japanese researcher to secure a guarateed time program
with the mission. I joined ESA in 2005 to work with Alberto Salama
and the team at ESAC to provide user support for European
astronomers awarded time on AKARI as part of the ESA/AKARI Open
Time program. The user support duties can range from anything from
helpdesk support, user documentation including translation to
assuring the smooth scheduling of open time observations.

My research interests are focussed on galaxy number counts and
evolutionary models derived from large area surveys from
sub-millimetre, infrared to X-Ray wavelengths. These models are
then used to produce predictions and strategies for future surveys
for the next generation of missions (e.g. AKARI, Herschel, SPICA
and even into the far future with FIRM).