We are pleased to announce that Steinn Sigurdsson has assumed the Scientific Director position. He will collaborate with the arXiv Program Director (Oya Y. Rieger) in overseeing the service and work with arXiv staff and the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) in providing intellectual leadership for the operation. This is a part-time appointment as he will be working remotely from Penn State, retaining his faculty position, with occasional visits to Cornell. Steinn’s key responsibilities include:

• Provide intellectual and scientific leadership by serving as facilitator of the SAB, which acts as an advisory board in setting policies and criteria for submission, moderation and administration, in collaboration with the SAB chair;
• Serve as the final arbiter for complex moderation decisions (e.g., when moderators disagree or if there is an author dispute);
• Contribute to strategic planning process representing the scientific communities served by arXiv, including serving on the steering committee of the next generation arXiv (arXiv-NG);
• Participate in setting system development (IT) priorities with a focus on submission and moderation processes and arXiv-NG;
• Work closely with the SAB members and subject advisory committees to ensure smooth moderation processes, such as assisting them in recruiting moderators;

arXiv’s organization chart can be found at: OrgChart2017

Steinn is currently a Professor of Astrophysics at the Pennsylvania State University at University Park.  He did his doctorate in theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. He then worked as a researcher at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and  the Institute of Astronomy and King’s College at Cambridge University in England. Steinn is a member of the Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos and the Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds, and the Penn State Astrobiology Research Center. He works on a range of topics in astrophysics and related areas, ranging from cosmology, large scale dynamics and black holes, to formation and evolution of planets, and the prospects for discovering non-terrestrial life. He has been a member of the board of the Aspen Center for Physics since 2010 and is currently a Trustee of the Aspen Center for Physics. 

We are very excited to welcome Steinn to our team!