Michael Arida

Employer: ADNET

Job Description: Sr. System Administrator/Sr. Programmer Analyst

Phone: (301) 286-2291

e-mail: marida@milkyway.gsfc.nasa.gov

Mike received a B.S. in Physics in 1991 from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute [RPI] in Troy, New York. While still an undergraduate, he worked for GTE Sylvania in Towanda, Pennsylvania, conducting research into electroluminescent devices. He later worked for Grumman Aerospace in Princeton, New Jersey, assisting in the design of medium energy particle accelerators.

Pursuing a desire to see the world, Mike joined the U.S. Peace Corps for a two year stint teaching high school Chemistry and Physics in the central African country of Malawi, home to the ninth largest freshwater lake in the world. He followed this with a 10 month English lecturer position at Academia Istropolitana in Brastislava, Slovak Republic.

Perhaps finally settling down, Mike began working at Goddard in 1995 for the HEASARC, first as a member several Guest Observer Facility. (GOF), as well as coordinating exhibits for national and international astronomical meetings.

In 2005 Mike moved over to the dark side as a System Administrator and for NASA's Astrophysics Science Division as well as continuing to support the ESA XMM-Newton mission at the U.S. XMM-Newton GOF, as well as assisting all the active HEASARC mission archives such as SWIFT, FERMI, NUSTAR and NICER and XRISM.

In 2019 Mike started transitioning to became the HEASARC and ASD infrastructure hardware lead handing storage, networking, and then added lead webmaster to his toolbox.