1.8 to 1.9 cherry picks

[Ariana-B]

Reason for this pull request

Porting recent PRs from develop into develop-1.9.

Proposed changes

• 1568

• 1579

  • [ ] Closes #xxxx
  • [ ] Tests added / passed
  • [ ] Fully documented, including docs/about/whats_new.rst for all changes

[codecov[bot]]

Codecov Report

All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests :white_check_mark:

Project coverage is 85.80%. Comparing base (93e1d01) to head (267190a). Report is 1 commits behind head on develop-1.9.

Additional details and impacted files

```diff @@ Coverage Diff @@ ## develop-1.9 #1580 +/- ## ============================================ Coverage 85.80% 85.80% ============================================ Files 140 140 Lines 15402 15402 ============================================ Hits 13215 13215 Misses 2187 2187 ```

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