"I own I can never look upon the stars without wondering why the whole world does not become astronomers; and that men endowed with sense and reason should neglect a science they are are naturally so much interested in, and so capable of inlarging their understanding, as next to a demonstration must convince them of their immortality, and reconcile them to all those little difficulties incident to human nature, without the least anxiety"

Dr. Keith Arnaud received his undergraduate and postgraduate education at the University of Cambridge, the former in the mathematics tripos, and the latter at the Institute of Astronomy. His thesis work covered imaging X-ray observations of clusters of galaxies and near-infrared spectroscopy of individual galaxies. His X-ray advisor was Prof. Andy Fabian and his IR advisor Dr. Gerry Gilmore. The main product of his thesis was the much used, but rather less published catalog of cooling flows. During his time at the IoA he also worked on EXOSAT observations of AGN and helped create (and name) the very successful XANADU X-ray data analysis package.

Keith then spent three years at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, first as a Herchel-Smith Scholar to Harvard and then as a Center postdoc. There he continued his X-ray and near-IR research, including deriving a new background subtraction algorithm and calibration for the Einstein MPC. In the fall of 1988, he moved to his current position at Goddard and the University of Maryland, where he is an associate research scientist.

Keith's responsibilities at Goddard revolve around data acquisition and analysis. He works on the ASCA Guest Observer Facility and is a co-author and maintainer of XSPEC, the world-standard for the analysis of astronomical X-ray spectra. Keith is also working on the ground software design for the Astro-E mission, due to be launched in February 2000.

His current research interests focus mainly on data from the ASCA mission, in particular that from observations of clusters of galaxies. The unprecedented spectral resolution and joint spectral and spatial capabilities of the ASCA instruments are providing much new knowledge of clusters of galaxies as well as new challenges in data analysis techniques and calibration.