Biography

Dr Francois Rigaut obtained his PhD from University of Paris 7 in 1992 on the first Adaptive Optics (AO) system for astronomy, COME-ON, then developed in Europe and used at the ESO La Silla observatory. Since then, Dr Rigaut has been involved in the technological and theoretical developments and promotion of Adaptive Optics at several institutes -The Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, the European Southern Observatory and the Gemini Observatory - and through various instruments: PUEO, NAOS, Altair and lately the Gemini multi-conjugate AO system GeMS.
Since January 2012, Dr Rigaut is with the Australian National University (ANU) Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, where he is the AO principal scientist. At ANU, Dr Rigaut has been involved in studies for the GMT Laser Tomography AO system and the Space Environment Research Centre in AO-related activities including satellite imaging and debris tracking. He co-led the SUBARU Ground Layer AO conceptual design. Since mid-2018, Dr Rigaut is the Principal Investigator for MAVIS, leading an international team of scientists and engineers to build an ambitious Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics system for one of the European Southern Observatory 8-m telescope in Chile. MAVIS is currently in phase A (Conceptual design). The project consortium includes ANU (lead institute), AAO-Macquarie, INAF (Italy) and LAM (France). MAVIS, an approximately AUD30M project, will provide a diffraction limited field of view of 30x30" to a suite of instruments in the optical wavelength range and is expected to surpass the angular resolution and sensitivity of the Hubble Space Telescope.