Stijn Buitink

Stijn Buitink 

Stijn Buitink is an astrophysicist at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. His research lies at the boundary between astronomy and particle physics. He is interested in the most explosive and violent phenomena in the Universe, such as detonating and colliding stars, or supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies. He studies these sources by observing the fundamental particles - protons and gamma rays, but also the ghostlike neutrinos - that they radiate at energies far larger than anything that we can produce on Earth. In this search he uses observatories all around the world, often at desolate locations like Antarctica, the Argentinian pampas, or the Australian outback, but also closer to home with the Dutch LOFAR telescope.