Projects
I started off as a radio astronomer, studying radio recombination line research of galactic HII regions, and I first worked a few years as a radio astronomer at the VLA and the WSRT before I joined SRON in 1990. Since then I have had the wonderful opportunity to be involved in a large number of world leading Far Infrared missions. I starting with development of software systems, initially for IRAS and later for ISO data reduction, moving on to take the lead of the ISO/SWS instrument operations team. Following this I became a member of the Herschel ground segment system engineering team where we developed the smooth transition concept, enabling the use of what ultimately were to be operations processes and procedures (e.g. scientific pipeline analysis modules) already during on-ground instrument level tests in the lab, e.g. in Groningen for the HIFI instrument. In the final Herschel and HIFI development, integration and satellite test phases I led the HIFI team as project manager, and for a short while even was interim principal investigator. From Hershel I moved on to being the PI for the SAFARI instrument onboard of SPICA. SPICA was originally a Japanese lead mission to bring a large cold Far IR telescope into space, which in later phases became a European led project with a major Japanese share. In that context I was asked to take the mission lead role, with as a major task to bring 25-odd institutes from across the globe together in a joint, and ultimately quite successful, ESA M5 proposal. After the agencies in a late stage unfortunately decide to retract SPICA from the M5 competition, I was asked to take a lead role in managing the Dutch work supporting the MIRI instrument on-board of JWST, and to take up the project management for the SRON work on the Athena/XIFU instrument.
Institute management
Within SRON for several years I led the Groningen computing division, and the low energy astronomy science and operations group. I am a member of the SRON strategy council, and have been involved with several of the teams that at various times have looked into ways to further optimize the SRON organization. Currently I am the lead for the Low Energy Astrophysics team.
Acquisition
At SRON we always need to be looking towards the future, identifying the needs of the (Dutch) astronomical community and identifying future mission opportunities aligned with SRON’s scientific and technological interests. In this context in parallel with my project work I was, and still am, involved in several US-led proposals and missions towards getting larger THz telescopes into space in the near term (OASIS, SALTUS, TOP). Also I am interested to follow, and if possible join, interferometry missions aiming at still higher spatial resolution in the FarIR domain, a necessary capability to make the next breakthroughs in understanding the obscured universe.
Teaching
For the Netherlands to maintain its leading position in space astronomy, young astronomers and engineers need to be trained to understand how to visualize, design and implement breakthrough space instrumentation. This is in part done by on the one hand giving lectures and courses explaining the processes and technologies involved and on the other hand by training on the job – I am actively supporting both of these in the SRON and Kapteyn institutes.
Outreach
The future of SRON’s work depends on society seeing that work as import and relevant. In that context outreach is an absolute must, but actually also it is great fun! Whenever asked to present something about the universe in general and what we at SRON are doing towards understanding that universe better I happily step up and try to explain our work and my understanding of what we have learned about the universe and our place in it – open days, classes for both primary and secondary schools, public lectures, all are worth the effort.
