Remco F.J. van der Burg European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild Str. 2, 85748 Garching bei M¨unchen, DE ! [email protected] http://www.eso.org/∼rvanderb/ +49 89 3200 6684 0000-0003-1535-2327 Research interests • Galaxy evolution • Low-surface brightness galaxies • Structure formation • Galaxy clusters • Ultra-diffuse galaxies • Large optical and NIR surveys Education & Career ELT Working Group Coordinator Nov 2020- Faculty Astronomer, 60% Functional work ESO Headquarters, Garching, Germany ESO Postdoctoral Fellow 2017-2020 75% Independent research, 25% Functional work ESO Headquarters, Garching, Germany Postdoctoral Fellow 2014-2017 Sponsor: Dr. Monique Arnaud D´epartement d'Astrophysique, CEA Saclay, France Function: Lead optical and near-IR follow-up studies of high-z Planck clusters Ph.D. Astronomy & Astrophysics 2009-2014 Advisors: Dr. Henk Hoekstra & Prof. Koenraad Kuijken Sterrewacht Leiden, Leiden University, The Netherlands Thesis: The Distribution of Stellar Mass in Galaxy Clusters over Cosmic Time M.Sc. Astronomy & Astrophysics 2007-2009 Awarded Cum Laude Sterrewacht Leiden, Leiden University, The Netherlands ESO functional work - ELT Working Groups ELT WGs overall coordinator 2018-2021 Support the preparation of science operations for the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) • Coordinator of twelve WGs that are developing key operational aspects required for the ELT before first light: design of guide star catalogues, simulated AO performance, instrument simulators, exposure time calculators, weather- and atmospheric monitoring, spectro-photometric standards, telluric correction, PSF reconstruction, sky subtraction, spectral line calibrations, and detector characterisation • Combine expertise within ESO (scientists, software engineers, SciOps), the instrument consortia and the broader astronomical community (total ∼130 contributors). Align all activities with deliverables set by operational and scientific needs • Facilitate internal communication by moderating all WG communication platforms (tWiki, mailing lists, PEXIP meeting rooms, Slack) • Main organizer of two plenary meetings of all WGs in May 2020 and Apr 2021, each with ∼80 active participants from the ELT community (virtual meetings due to the COVID19 pandemic) • Effectively communicate overall status of WGs, and remaining key issues, to Faculty meetings, DMO all-hands meetings, Paranal SciOps Department meeting, ESO operations workshops, ELT INS quarterly meeting for all follow-up engineers • Three notable major products provided by the WGs so far: - TIPTOP software package to predict your favourite AO PSF. Will be implemented as microservice in ObsPrep, and will already be used for, and tested on, VLT/ERIS - Prioritised list of hardware components that are required to be part of the astronomical site monitor tower(s) at Cerro Armazones for science operations - Report with recommendations for ELT/HIRES to build redundancy in their main wavelength calibration method in order to meet their most challenging science goals Lead/principal contact of WG on guide star catalogues 2018-2021 Provide the ELT with an accurate pointing reference and clean star catalogue for wavefront sensing • Interact with AO specialists from the different instruments to discuss trade-offs in AO performance related tothe available guide stars. Key issue is to find a compromise between sky coverage and tolerance towards using certain binary systems (in terms of flux ratio and angular separation) and extended objects for wavefront sensing • Provided Roadmap (May 2020) towards reaching the required brightness limits with Gaia+VISTA/UKIRT, and ultimately LSST/Rubin • Provided Roadmap (April 2021) towards cleaning the catalogue of critical binaries and extended objects with Gaia combined with the HST Fine Guidance Sensors Other services to ESO Co-Organiser Forum on Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning with Nima Sedaghat March 2021- Motivated by training I received on: Machine Learning, Neural Networks & Deep Learning, and several specialization courses. These were provided via Coursera by Stanford University and Deeplearning.AI (110 hours of formal course work for personal development, from July 2020-July 2021). Many of these techniques are applicable to scientific and operational activities at ESO and beyond. Main organiser ELT meetings and laboratory visits for (summer) Students & Fellows Oct 2017- Member of Visitor Selection Committee (VSC) 2018-2020 Organiser Knowledge Exchange Series 2018-2020 Lecture series originally intended to transfer knowledge from senior to junior scientists. As organiser, I broadened the range of topics (to e.g. instrumentation and engineering), aimed at fostering interactions between ESO astronomers and engineering staff. Co-organiser of the ESO-funded Summer Student Research School during its inaugural year Summer 2019 Organiser of the lecture series. Mentor of one student (of 7) on project \Understanding the formation mechanism of galaxies at their extremes" (paper published in A&A). ESO Fellowship selection peer reviewer 2019 Assistant/Support scientist for the ESO OPC P101/P104 Organiser of the ESO social day for the Directorate for Science 2018 Services to the astronomical community Member of the Time Allocation Committee (off-site reviewer) for HST Cycle 28 & 29 2020-2021 JCMT External reviewer time allocation 2020 CFHT External reviewer time allocation 2018 Referee/reviewer for A&A, ApJ (+ Letters), and MNRAS 2016- Referee/reviewer for Nature Astronomy 2019- Scientific Conference / Workshop Organisation (last 5 years) SOC of Conference Extreme galaxies and extreme environments as probes of galaxy evolution Postponed to 2022 SOC of EAS Symposium Exploring the high-redshift Universe with ALMA June 2021 SOC and LOC of ESO Science Workshop Galaxy Cluster Formation June 2021 Co-chair of EAS Symposium Quenching Cluster Galaxies in the Cosmic Middle Ages June 2020 LOC of ESO workshop to discuss science/technical aspects of AtLAST January 2018 Young scientist Mentorship/Supervision Supervisor of summer student Aisha Bachmann during her 6-week research stay at ESO Summer 2019 Aisha published a paper in 2021, and presented this work at the EAS 2021. Co-Supervisor (with Dr. Michael Hilker) and mentor of PhD student Daniel Prole during his ESO studentship 2018-2019 Dan has published two papers during his one year at ESO. He successfully defended his PhD and is now a postdoctoral researcher at Macquarie University with Dr. Lee Spitler. Co-advising several students working on the GOGREEN data set 2018-2021 This includes grad-student Andrew Reeves (main advisor Michael Balogh), who I trained observing at Gemini-South. His first paper, on which I am 3rd author, is submitted to MNRAS. This also includes undergrad Karen McNab(main advisor Michael Balogh), who has submitted her first paper, on which I am also 3rd author. Informal mentoring of students at ESO 2017-2021 Including formal \Fellow mentoring" of ESO Students Souradeep Bhattacharya and Jean-Paul Breuer from 2017-2020. Co-Supervisor (with Dr. Tim Schrabback) of MSc student Hannah Zohren (hosted at Bonn University) 2016-2019 Involved training her to observe with the William Herschel Telescope (two observing runs), and mentoring her during her 1-week visit at CEA Saclay in July 2017 and her 1-week stay at ESO in August 2018. She published her work in 2019, which will be part of her PhD, which she is pursuing at Bonn University. Co-Supervisor (with Prof. Adam Muzzin) of Summer student Steffi Yen (University of Maryland, College Park) 2013 Subject: \Searching for the Most Distance Galaxy Clusters". Steffi presented her work at the AAS. She hassince continued her research at Heidelberg University and recently defended her PhD. Communication / Outreach / Teaching Speaker at ESA Space Safety Festival digital event June 2021 ESO: Big telescopes observing small objects Lectures for ESO Summer Students 2020-2021 Summer 2021: ESO from Paranal to the ELT Summer 2020: ESO's Road towards an Extremely Large Telescope Astronomy lectures for the youth in the Netherlands. 2008- Most recent: Op weg naar de Sterren met de Europese Zuidelijke Sterrenwacht. High school Erasmiaans, Rotterdam, Oct 2019 Member of the Leiden Observatory public outreach committee 2009-2014 Delivered interviews for newspapers, radio and national television. Participated in numerous virtual and physical events to answer astronomy-related questions to a general public. Working group teacher at Leiden Observatory (4 semesters) 2009-2012 Courses: Radiative processes, Modern research in astronomy. Bachelor research project supervision. A collaboration with artist Judith Nab: The rest of the world (and beyond), which involved scientists and children 2011 Organised tours, and presented numerous public talks, at the historical observatory of Leiden 2007-2009 Observational Astronomy - Planning PI of successful HST Cycle 28 program (with WFC3/UVIS and ACS/WFC, PID 16186) PI of successful VLT/VIMOS MOS DDT program (9h), and regular program (41h) PI of 8 successful CFHT programs (totaling 24h with MegaCam and 93h with WIRCam) Co-I of ∼ 100 successful observing proposals: Telescopes: HST (WFC3 IR imaging+GRISM, ACS, WFC3 UVIS), XMM-Newton, Chandra, ALMA, Subaru (Suprime-Cam, HSC), Gemini (GMOS), VLT (FLAMES/UVES, FORS2, HAWKI, KMOS, MUSE, VIMOS), MMT (Hectospec), VISTA (VIRCAM), CFHT (MegaCam, WIRCam), AAT (WiFeS IFU), WHT (ACAM imaging and long slit), INT (WFC) Notable Co-I programs: • GOGREEN consortium (http://gogreensurvey.ca/, PI: Michael Balogh)