People Directory


Ian McLean

Ian McLean
Professor, Vice Chair
Experimental Astrophysics

Office: 3-939 PAB
Phone: (310) 825-1140
E-Mail: [javascript protected email address]

Educational Background: 
  • B.Sc. (Hons), Physics & Astronomy, University of Glasgow, Scotland, 1971
  • Ph.D., Astronomy, University of Glasgow, 1974
Positions Held: 

UCLA Infrared Laboratory
6-164 Knudsen Hall
(310) 206-7535

Research Interest: 

Professor McLean's research interests are in the areas of infrared astronomy and astronomical instrumentation. Following a decade of work at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh and the Joint Astronomy Centre in Hawaii, Professor McLean came to UCLA in 1989, and with his colleague Professor Eric Becklin, established a new research group in the area of infrared astronomy and instrumentation. The main focus of the program was the creation of a research laboratory for the design and development of instrumentation based on state-of-the-art infrared "array" detector technology, and the construction of novel, facility-class, scientific instruments for the W. M. Keck 10-meter Telescope - the world's largest - which is operated on the 14,000 ft summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii by the California Association for Research in Astronomy (CARA) on behalf of the University of California and Caltech, with participation by the University of Hawaii and NASA. Professor McLean is Director of the UCLA Infrared Lab and also an Associate Director of the system-wide multi-campus research unit known as the University of California Observatories (UCO). He served 10 years on the Keck Science Steering Committee including almost 3 years as Chair. The internationally known IR Lab at UCLA, which celebrated its 20th anniversary on November 20, 2009, has successfully built all or parts of many instruments. At the Keck Observatory, these instruments include KCam - the first light camera used to commission the Adaptive Optics (AO) facility; NIRSPEC - the first cryogenic echelle spectrometer on a 10-m telescope; and NIRC2 - a diffraction-limited AO infrared camera built jointly with Caltech. A unique twin-channel IR camera/ spectrometer/ polarimeter system (known locally as "Gemini") was built for the 3-m telescope at Lick observatory and a simple infrared camera was constructed for the US Naval Observatory in Flagstaff. Professor McLean’s current projects include FLITECAM, a near-infrared camera for the NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) and MOSFIRE, a powerful new multi-object infrared spectrometer for the Keck Observatory.

Selected Publications: 
  • I. S. McLean, C. Aspin and H. Reitsema: "High-resolution polarization images of the Crab Nebula with a charge-coupled device camera", NATURE, Vol. 304, 243 1983. (4 pages + Front Cover).
  • I. S. McLean, T. C. Chuter, M. J. McCaughrean and J. T. Rayner, “System design of a 1-5 micron IR camera for astronomy,” in Instrumentation for Astronomy VI, ed. D. L. Crawford, Proc. S.P.I.E. Vol. 627, 430-437, 1986.
  • I. S. McLean, E. E. Becklin, G. Brims, J. Canfield, L. S. Casement, D. F. Figer, F. Henriquez, A. Huang, T. Liu, B. Macintosh, H. Teplitz: “The UCLA double-beam infrared camera system”, Proc. S.P.I.E., Vol. 1946, in Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation, A. Fowler, ed., 513-532, 1993.
  • I. S. McLean, E. E. Becklin, O. Bendiksen, G. Brims, J. Canfield, D. F. Figer, J. R. Graham, J. Hare, F. Lacayanga, J. Larkin, S.B. Larson, N. Levenson, N. Magnone, H. Teplitz and W. Wong, “The design and development of NIRSPEC: a near-infrared echelle spectrograph for the Keck II telescope,” in Infrared Astronomical Instrumentation, A. M. Fowler, ed., Proc. S.P.I.E. Vol. 3354, 566-578, 1998.
  • I. S. McLean, M. K. Wilcox, E. E. Becklin, D. F. Figer, A. M. Gilbert, J. R. Graham, J. E. Larkin, N. A. Levenson, H. I. Teplitz & J. D. Kirkpatrick, “J-band infrared spectroscopy of a sample of brown dwarfs using NIRSPEC on Keck II,” Ap. J., 533, L45-L48, 2000.
  • I. S. McLean, L. Prato, S.S. Kim, M.K. Wilcox, J.D. Kirkpatrick and A. Burgasser, “Near-infrared spectroscopy of brown dwarfs: methane and the transition between the L and T spectral types,” Ap. J., 561, L115-L118, 2001.
  • I. S. McLean, McGovern, Mark R., Burgasser, Adam, J., Kirkpatrick, J. Davy, Prato, L., and Kim, Sungsoo S., “The NIRSPEC Brown Dwarf Spectroscopic Survey. I. Low-Resolution Near-Infrared Spectra,” Ap. J., 596, 561-586, 2003.
  • I. S. McLean, Prato, L., McGovern, Mark R., Burgasser, Adam J., Kirkpatrick, J. Davy, Rice, Emily L. and Kim, Sungsoo S., “The NIRSPEC Brown Dwarf Spectroscopic Survey. II. High-Resolution J-Band Spectra of M, L, and T Dwarfs,” Ap. J, 658, 1217-1235, 2007.

Books and Popular Articles

  • “Infrared Astronomy’s New Image,” Sky and Telescope, Vol. 75, 254-259, 1988.
  • Electronic and Computer-aided Astronomy; from eyes to electronic sensors, Ellis Horwood Ltd., (in association with Prentiss Hall), Chichester, UK, 1989.
  • Infrared Astronomy with Arrays: the Next Generation, I. S. McLean, editor, Kluuwer Academic Publ., Netherlands, 1994.
  • "Infrared Arrays: The Next Generation," Sky & Telescope, June 1995.
  • Electronic Imaging in Astronomy: Detectors and Instrumentation, 2nd edition, Springer, New York and Heidelberg, 2008. (The 1st edition of this book was published in 1997.)