Some of MeerTime's members visiting for a commissioning run in late 2017.

Meet Our Team

MeerTime brings together pulsar experts from South Africa and around the world and is comprised of eleven institutions from four continents. MeerTime has a chair, an institutional contact for each institution, four science themes with leaders, and various working groups and chairs.

MeerTime is on Slack

MeerTime Chair:

The current MeerTime chair is Professor Matthew Bailes (Swinburne University of Technology). His contact details are here.

MeerTime Member Representatives:

• ASTRON: Dr. Gemma Janssen
• Auckland University of Technology: Dr. Willem van Straten
• Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique & Université d'Orléans: Dr. Gilles Theureau
• CSIRO Astronomy and Space Sciences: Dr. Simon Johnston
• Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE): Dr Tim Pennucci
• International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research - Curtin: Dr. Ramesh Bhat
• Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy: Dr. Michael Kramer
• National Institute for Astrophysics: Dr. Andrea Possenti
• National Radio Astronomy Observatory: Dr. Scott Ransom
• South African Radio Astronomy Observatory: Dr. Fernando Camilo
• Swinburne University of Technology: Prof. Matthew Bailes
• University of British Columbia: Professor Ingrid Stairs
• University of Manchester: Dr Patrick Weltevrede & Dr Michael Keith
• University of Oxford: Professor Aris Karastergiou
• West Virginia University: Professor Maura McLaughlin

Builders Working Group Leaders: 

Scheduling Tools: Aditya Parthasarathy
Simulation: Renee Spiewak
DAQ Hardware: Andrew Jameson
DAQ Software: Andrew Jameson
Databases: David Champion and Ewan Barr and Andrew Jameson

• Initial Design: Ewan Barr and David Champion
• Offline: Andrew Jameson

Pipelines:

• RFI Rejection: Aditya Parthasarathy, Daniel Reardon, Ryan Shannon, Matthew Bailes
• Polarimetric Calibration: Willem van Straten & Aris Karastergiou, Paul Demorest
• Decimated data: Renee Spiewak, Daniel Reardon.

Archiving:

• Raw Data & Metadata: SARAO 
• Calibrated data: Andrew Jameson
• Decimated data: Stefan Oslowski

Absolute Timing: Sarah Buchner
Data Distribution to Mirrors: Joeri van Leeuwen
International Mirror sites: Joeri van Leeuwen, +...
ToA Computation: Stefan Oslowski, Tim Pennucci, Ryan Shannon, Matt Miles.
Documentation: Michael Keith (wiki)
Web Portals: Andrew Jameson
MeerTime Website: Matthew Bailes
​

Commissioning:

 Observing Strategy: Ryan Shannon

Governance:

Policies: Matthew Bailes
Communications: Matthew Bailes
Finances: Yeshe Fenner
Reporting: Matthew Bailes

Science Theme Leaders:

• Millisecond Pulsars and Gravitational Wave Detection: Ryan Shannon, Willem van Straten, Maura McLaughlin.
• Relativistic and Binary Pulsars: Michael Kramer, Ingrid Stairs.
• Globular Cluster Timing: Scott Ransom and Andrea Possenti.
• 1000 Pulsar Array: Aris Karastergiou, Simon Johnston and Ramesh Bhat.

MeerTime Member Institutions:

ASTRON

ASTRON operates the Dutch radio astronomy facilities and are experts in pulsar discovery and timing 

Auckland University of Technology

AUT is leading efforts to design the SKA pulsar processor

CNRS and University of Orleans

CNRS operate the powerful Nancay Telescope and are experts at pulsar timing

CSIRO Astronomy and Space Sciences

CSIRO has been a world leader in pulsar astronomy since their discovery in the 1960s

ICRAR - Curtin

ICRAR are experts at low frequency pulsar astronomy and studies of giant pulses

Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy

The MPIfR is renowned for its work in timing relativistic binary pulsars 

INAF

INAF operates the Sardinia 64m telescope and are experts in pulsar surveys

NRAO

NRAO pulsar astronomers are experts in observations of globular cluster pulsars

SARAO

SARAO hosts the MeerKAT
​radio telescope

Swinburne University of Technology

Swinburne's pulsar group are world leaders in precision pulsar timing

University of British Columbia

UBC are renowned for their expertise in the timing of relativistic binary pulsars

University of Manchester

The University of Manchester operates the Lovell 76m telescope and have a proud tradition in radio pulsar timing

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is known for its work on the pulsar emission mechanism

West Virginia University

WVU have played a leading role in the establishment of NANOgrav, the North American pulsar timing array

Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE)

Tim Pennucci is an expert on accurate pulsar timing with wide-band instruments.