SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Senior Staff Scientist
Adam Bolton is an astrophysicist with over 20 years of scientific, technical, and managerial experience in large astronomical surveys. During his Ph.D. and postdoctoral years at MIT, CfA, and U. Hawaii he was a founding member of the Sloan Lens ACS (SLACS) collaboration that used the combination of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the Hubble Space Telescope to transform strong galaxy-galaxy gravitational lensing from a curiosity into a quantitative tool for studying dark matter, galaxy evolution, and fundamental physics.
As a faculty member in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Utah from 2009-2016, he led a research group that implemented the spectroscopic data-reduction software for the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, consolidated SDSS operational data systems at Utah’s Center for High-Performance Computing, developed multiple new algorithmic frameworks for astronomical data reduction and analysis, and extended strong-lensing studies to higher redshifts and lower galaxy masses. He was also instrumental in establishing new undergraduate and graduate programs in Astronomy within the Department.
From 2016-2024, Bolton served as the Director of the Community Science and Data Center at NSF NOIRLab (and previously at the National Optical Astronomy Observatories, NOAO). In this role he oversaw the creation of the Astro Data Lab and the ANTARES event broker, along with major software modernizations of NOIRLab’s data archive and telescope time allocation platform. He was deeply involved throughout the creation of NSF NOIRLab as the union of Gemini Observatory, Rubin Observatory Operations, and NOAO, with a particular focus on the challenges and opportunities of integrating software and data systems and preparing for community-driven science with Rubin-LSST.
Bolton currently holds a Senior Staff Scientist appointment at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory where he leads Rubin Observatory’s US Data Facility effort. He continues to pursue scientific research combining spectroscopic and imaging data to understand the role of dark matter in galaxies, most recently in the context of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) project and in preparation for Rubin-LSST. He is also a Co-PI of the NSF-Simons CosmicAI Institute, collaborating with AI experts at the University of Texas at Austin and other institutions to realize the potential of large language models to accelerate and democratize discovery within large astronomical data sets.