Dunlap Fellow Dr. Ziggy Pleunis has been awarded a prestigious Veni fellowship from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) to support his work on the detection and characterization of fast radio bursts. Designed for scientists who have recently obtained their PhDs, the grant fuels three years of independent research at a Dutch university or research institute.
Pleunis’ research aims to unravel the origins of fast radio bursts and to develop their use as astrophysical tools to better understand the density and magnetization of the Universe.
“It has been wonderful to deepen my understanding of radio telescopes with colleagues in the Long Wavelength Lab (the research groups of Profs. Vanderlinde and Mena-Parra) and to broaden my expertise by studying polarization and magnetic fields in Team B-Force (the research group of Prof. Gaensler), while being at a friendly and very supportive institute,” Pleunis says.
Since joining the Dunlap Institute in 2021, Pleunis has worked on groundbreaking research in the study of fast radio bursts, including doubling the number of known repeating sources. He also supervised several student-led research projects and organized a two-day workshop about the future of fast radio burst research that brought over 60 experts from around the world to the University of Toronto, with another 60 joining online.
“The Dunlap Institute has given me the opportunity to develop my own research ideas in this area and I am really excited to see the results of all the projects I was able to start with the institute’s support,” Pleunis says.
“Ziggy’s been a tremendous member of the lab, always around and willing to help students, work our way through papers, organizing the weekly CHIME/FRB hack-a-thon, and even helping out with radio instrumentation labs at the Dunlap Institute Summer School. I can’t imagine a better citizen of the institute, and he’s managed to do that while leading major research efforts within CHIME/FRB as well,” says Prof. Keith Vanderlinde. “His Veni is extremely well deserved!”
Pleunis will continue at the Dunlap Institute until the end of 2023 and begin his new role in the Netherlands in January 2024.
