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About

T. Claybaugh is an instrumental astronomer and observational cosmologist whose work sits at the intersection of precision hardware engineering and large-scale structure science, with a particular focus on the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). Claybaugh has made significant contributions to the design, deployment, and calibration of DESI's revolutionary fiber positioning system — an array of 5,020 robotic positioners installed on the Mayall Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, capable of retargeting optical fibers to micron-level precision in under two minutes. His most-cited work (175 citations) details this robotic focal plane system, which enables DESI to simultaneously collect spectra from thousands of celestial objects and ultimately map 40 million galaxies and quasars in the largest 3D survey of the universe ever attempted. Beyond hardware, Claybaugh has tackled critical methodological challenges, including astrometric calibration of the focal plane and developing statistical techniques to correct fiber assignment biases in large-scale structure analyses — essential for extracting unbiased cosmological measurements. His body of work, accumulating over 260 citations, directly underpins humanity's most ambitious observational effort to understand the nature of dark energy.