Dr Willem Van Straten:

As an undergraduate in Canada, I was preparing for a job in the space industry when I learned about radio astronomy and new ways to study the physical extremes of our Universe through pulsars.  I completed my PhD on high-precision pulsar timing in Australia before undertaking post-doctoral and academic staff appointments at the Netherlands Foundation for Research in Astronomy (ASTRON), The Centre for Gravitational Wave Astronomy (The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley), and the Centre for Astrophysics & Supercomputing (Swinburne University of Technology).  In 2016, I joined AUT as a Senior Lecturer.

I’ve co-authored over 100 refereed journal articles, primarily related to the study of pulsars and fast radio bursts, including 4 in Science and 2 in Nature.  I work closely with international collaborators on large, long-term projects such as the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA), the International Pulsar Timing Array (IPTA), and the Survey for Pulsars and Extragalactic Radio Bursts (SUPERB).  In support of these projects, I’ve led the development of three scientific data analysis packages that are used by the international community of pulsar astronomers (psrdada, dspsr, and psrchive).  I also led the design of the pulsar timing instrumentation for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) as a member of the SKA Central Signal Processor consortium.