Who I Am
Hello — I'm André Offringa¹. I have headed the LOFAR Science Group at the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON) since 2014, and I also serve as "Universitair Docent" (assistant professor) at the University of Groningen.
My research focuses on the Epoch of Reionisation (EoR) — the period in our Universe's history when the first objects started to warm the surrounding gas. I sit on the management team of the LOFAR EoR project, which employs the LOFAR telescope to search for signals from the early Universe.
From 2012 to 2014 I was a post-doctoral fellow at Mount Stromlo Observatory, part of the Australian National University in Canberra, where I worked with the Murchison Widefield Array interferometric telescope on a statistical detection of the Epoch of Reionisation. I also work on analysing and mitigating Radio-Frequency Interference (RFI), which was the topic of my PhD thesis at the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute (2008–2012). In addition, I develop imaging and calibration algorithms. My written articles are gathered on the publications page.
Beyond work I enjoy horse riding, ballroom dancing and playing several instruments — chiefly the piano. I used to teach ballroom at Student Society 'The Blue Toes'.
Home ASTRON Epoch of Reionisation LOFAR Mount Stromlo Observatory Murchison Widefield Array Radio-Frequency Interference Dissertation Kapteyn Astronomical Institute Publications The Blue Toes
Software and Interests
Much of my work involves writing scientific software. One of the tools I have built is AOFlagger, a platform for mitigating radio-frequency interference in interferometric or single-dish observations. I also created two interferometric imagers: WSClean, a fast imager, and an imager that avoids gridding the data in uv-space. Both are built for widefield synthesis. I additionally devised a visibility compression technique called Dysco.
I do most of my software development in C++, a language I am passionate about, and I enjoy following news about its standardisation.
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Whether you are curious about the Epoch of Reionisation, radio-frequency interference or the imaging and calibration tools behind modern radio telescopes, this page gathers the key threads of my research and software work. Follow the links above to explore my publications, the AOFlagger, WSClean and Dysco projects, or the institutions I work with.