A New Broom presents himself

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In early December, the Board of NWO visited Astron and had incisive discussions with Astron board and staff. This was an excellent opportunity for Dr Ir Gert Kruithof, the new Head of Research and Development, to present the latest innovations from the R&D laboratory, and himself. Gert has a PhD in Applied Physics from Groningen University, and has made his career in the highly regarded Dutch Institute for Applied Physiscs Research (TNO). Most recently he led the TNO division of ICT Business Information Services.

The NWO Board members showed a keen interest in our developments on phased-array feeds, photonic beamforming, a water-cooled Uniboard for digital signal processing, and High-Performance Computing. These innovations are extremely important for LOFAR, APERTIF and SKA. In addition, the path to valorization of these technologies for domains other than radio astronomy was highlighted.

Gert is the first outsider to be appointed in this function, and that seems to be working out remarkably well. Since he has only been the head of Astron R&D since August, he was obviously showing the fruits of developments that were set in motion by his predecessors. He is keenly aware that he stands on the shoulders of giants(*).

But the times have changed (as even dinosaurs realize), so the Astron R&D lab will increasingly have to operate in a rather different environment. The main challenges are the new partnership with a greatly expanded Astron astronomy group that now has its own sources of funding, and securing a substantial role within the context of the worldwide SKA movement. Gert has recently laid out his plans to the R&D staff, and looks forward to meeting the new challenges together with this remarkable group of specialists. (A small but representative sample can be seen loitering in the background of the picture).

(*) Lex Muller, Jean Casse, Wim Brouw, Arnold van Ardenne, Marco de Vos, and the Triumvirate led by Albert-Jan Boonstra. (Wim Brouw is included because he led the computing effort before it became part of R&D after the re-organisation of 1990).