• B.Sc. (Hons), Physics & Astronomy, University of Glasgow, Scotland, 1971
• Ph.D., Astronomy, University of Glasgow, 1974

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 the 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). The IR Lab at UCLA has successfully built all or parts of several 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; NIRC2 - a diffraction-limited infrared camera built jointly with Caltech. A powerful twin-channel IR camera/ spectrometer/ polarimeter system (known locally as "Gemini") was built for the 3-m telescope at Lick observatory and a simple shortwave-infrared camera was constructed for the US Naval Observatory in Flagstaff. Current projects include FLITECAM, a near-infrared camera for the new Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) for which Professor Becklin is the Science Director, and OSIRIS, a unique new integral field spectrometer for the Keck AO system led by Professor James Larkin. Professor McLean was (is) Principal Investigator for Gemini, NIRSPEC and FLITECAM and co-investigator on KCam and NIRC2.

Selected Recent Publications (from a career total of ~300):

• J.C. Brown, I.S. McLean and A.G. Emslie: "Polarization by Thomson Scattering in Optically Thin Stellar Envelopes II: Binary and Multiple Star Envelopes and the Determination of Binary Inclinations", A. & A., 68, 415 (1978).
• I. S. McLean, C. Aspin and H. Reitsema: "High-resolution polarization images of the Crab Nebula with a charge-coupled device camera", NATURE, 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, SPIE Vol. 627, 430 (1986). (8 pages).
• L. L. Cowie, J. Gardner, S. J. Lilly and I. S. McLean: "A K-band deep galaxy survey", Ap. J., 360, L1-L4 (1990).
• 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 (1993) (20 pages).
• 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. SPIE 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.
• J. M. M. Horn & I. S. McLean, "The optical design of FLITECAM," in Optical and IR Telescope Instrumentation and Detectors, M. Iye and A. F. M. Moorwood, eds., Proc. SPIE Vol. 4008, 979-989, 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

Books and Popular Articles:

• "Electronic Imaging in Astronomy: Detectors and Instrumentation," I. S. McLean, Praxis Publishing Ltd., Chichester, England, 1997.
• "Infrared Arrays: The Next Generation," I. S. McLean, in Sky & Telescope, June 1995.
• "Infrared Astronomy with Arrays: The Next Generation," I. S. McLean, editor, Kluuwer Academic Publ., Netherlands, 1994.