NZ Gravity is proud to have had one of our members, Prof. Willem van Straten, win an award from the German Astronomical Society for his work in the development of analysis tools for pulsar data. Congratulations, Willem!

From the German Astronomical Society:

“Professor Willem van Straten receives the AG 2024 Astrophysical Software Award for his significant role in the development of the world-leading software package PSRCHIVE for the analysis of astronomical pulsar data. The open-source C++ library implements a wide range of algorithms for use in pulsar timing, scintillation studies, polarimetric calibration, visualization, etc. Since its first release in 2004, PSRCHIVE has been significantly enhanced in its functionality and has led to numerous publications. For example, the detection of the gravitational wave background published by collaborations from Europe, Australia, China, India and North America in the summer of 2023 is based on data analysis with PSRCHIVE. Van Straten studied in Canada and completed his doctorate at Swinburne University in Australia before working as a postdoctoral researcher at ASTRON in the Netherlands, the University of Texas, as a Senior Lecturer at Swinburne University, and as an Associate Professor at Auckland University of Technology. He recently joined Manly Astrophysics and co-founded Fourier Space, where he leads the development of pulsar signal processing software for the Square Kilometre Array Observatory.”