Dr Willem van Straten (Manly Astrophysics)
As an undergraduate in Canada, Willem was preparing for a job in the space industry when he was blown away by radio pulsars, which led him to Australia to pursue a PhD on high-precision pulsar timing with Matthew Bailes. This opened doors to post-doctoral and academic staff appointments at the Netherlands Foundation for Research in Astronomy (ASTRON), the Centre for Gravitational Wave Astronomy (University of Texas at Brownsville), the Centre for Astrophysics & Supercomputing (Swinburne University of Technology), and the Institute for Radio Astronomy and Space Research (Auckland University of Technology). He joined Manly Astrophysics in March 2023. Willem was awarded the 2024 Software Prize of the Astronomische Gesellschaft (German Astronomical Society) for his development and support of PSRCHIVE.
Willem currently lives on the edge of the Waitakere Ranges in the west of Auckland, where he spends half of his time developing pulsar signal processing software for the Square Kilometre Array Observatory and half undertaking research in instellar holography for Manly Astrophysics. Occasionally, he gets out on his bike and tires himself out on the surrounding hills.