Zoltan G. Levay
Space Telescope Science Institute
Office of Public Outreach
3700 San Martin Drive
Baltimore, Maryland 21218
USA
410-338-4907 Voice
410-338-4579 Fax
levay@stsci.edu

Zoltan (Zolt) Levay was born in Rawalpindi, Pakistan October 5, 1952. His parents emigrated from their native Hungary during WWII. His family has lived in the United States since 1956, becoming U.S. citizens in 1963. Mr. Levay graduated from Towson High School (Towson, Maryland) in 1970 and attended Indiana University (Bloomington, Indiana), receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in Astrophysics in 1975. He received a Master of Science degree in Astronomy from Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, Ohio) in 1978.

Mr. Levay was employed by Computer Sciences Corporation from 1978 until 1990, first at the Goddard Space Flight Center (Greenbelt, Maryland) as a Spacecraft Attitude Data Analyst for various science spacecraft missions including the Atmosphere Explorers and Solar Maximum Mission (SMM, later known as Solar Max), and programmer for the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) satellite. He joined the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland in 1983 as a Scientific Programmer. He has been employed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA Incorporated) at the Space Telescope Science Institute since 1990.  Until 1994 he was employed as a Scientific Programmer and since 1994 currently as Imaging Team Lead in the Office of Public Outreach at the Space Telescope Science Institute.

Mr. Levay’s primary responsibility is to process digital images from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) for presentation to a broad public audience via print and electronic news media and online. This includes processing and reformatting science data, creating color composites, enhancing color, and producing graphics and illustrations for varied products. He works with graphic artists, animators, photo lab personnel, scientists and many others within and outside STScI to help produce materials that are provided to news media, educators, publishers and the general public using a variety of computer hardware, software and networking tools.

Mr. Levay is a member of the Hubble Heritage Team, a grant-funded effort whose mission is to locate and publicize the most aesthetically appealing images from the Hubble Space Telescope.

Mr. Levay has developed software for astronomical data display and analysis and has produced materials for the World Wide Web including developing web sites and content. He works with scientists at the STScI and around the world who provide images from the HST to present the data so they are easy to understand by the general public without compromising technical science content.

Mr. Levay was awarded a Space Telescope Science Institute Individual Achievement Award in November 1997 and the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) 1997 Service Award. He is a member of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) and the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP).

Links

• Space Telescope Science Institute
• HubbleSite
• Hubble News
• Personal Photographs

January 20, 2010