Dr. Tom Landecker, Honorary Researcher, was recently awarded the WG Schneider Medal, the highest recognition of achievement by the National Research Council of Canada (NRC). This award recognizes an employee who has made an outstanding contribution to the NRC above and beyond the expectations of their job responsibilities and who is an example of the NRC’s values.
Dr. Landecker has been a major force and inspiration for Canadian astronomy for 5 decades. With experience in both engineering and astronomy, he pushes for technological improvement in the service of science, working with academic partners to develop new telescopes at the NRC’s Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory (DRAO) that have enabled science, including some of the world’s most important research on fast radio bursts (FRBs) here in Canada.
He is a publishing force, author of 150 papers in scientific and engineering journals. He celebrated his 80th birthday with 9 new publications in 2021 alone.
He is highly respected among his peers in astronomy, not only for his experience but also for his enthusiasm, leadership and mentoring, inspiring and encouraging the next generation of Canadian astronomers.
Legacy of telescopes and the discoveries they allow
Dr. Landecker first came to DRAO as a postdoctoral fellow, now part of the NRC Herzberg Center for the Study of Astronomy and Astrophysics, in 1969.
In this role, he helped build the Synthesis Telescope, a unique imaging radio telescope that is open to all Canadian and international astronomers. Later, as director of DRAO, Dr. Landecker used the Synthesis Telescope to lead the team conducting one of the largest studies of the interstellar environment (dust and gas), the Canadian Galactic Plane Survey (CGPS, 1995-2014). He developed broad-field polarization imaging techniques that have become standard in the field. The project has created over 400 peer-reviewed publications and continues to generate about 20 more each year. This success gave rise to an international era of large-scale radio research.
Dr. Landecker then launched the Global Magnetic Ion Survey (GMIMS), charting the polarization of the entire radio sky and making it available to all astronomers through the NRC’s Canadian Astronomical Data Center. The GMIMS consortium consists of 14 Canadian and 22 international scientists, including many experts in magnetic field research.
All of Landecker’s projects have developed new technical capabilities in support of science that were simply not possible before, from telescope upgrades and new CGPS algorithms, to new power concepts and field demonstrations leading to the success of intensity mapping. of Hydrogen in Canada Experiment (CHIME).
Supporting university cooperation
Dr. Landecker has also played an instrumental role in the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) located at DRAO. He advised university partners on developing CHIME’s unprecedented Half-Pipe design to implement a valuable new tool for cosmology and hunting for the FRB. CHIME was an incredible success, receiving the Governor-General’s Innovation Award (2020) and the Berkeley Award of the American Astronomical Society (2022). The CHIME result for FRB was praised among the best scientific results for 2020 by the journals Nature and Science.
“Tom is critical to CHIME’s success because of his deep knowledge of radio instruments, his incredible experience in galactic broadcasting, his enthusiastic assessment and detailed knowledge of a very wide range of research topics and his very deep respect for his colleagues.”
Mark Halpern, University of British Columbia and Principal Investigator, CHIME
“Tom has been a major driving force behind Canadian radio astronomy for many decades … Tom is absolutely important to the development, construction, implementation, testing, calibration and scientific use of CHIME.”
Victoria Caspi, McGill University and Principal Investigator, CHIME / FRB
Mentoring
Dr. Tom Landecker’s enthusiasm, technical expertise, scientific focus and practical work ethic have directly inspired generations of students and postdoctoral fellows. He is an Associate Professor at the University of Calgary and the University of British Columbia, Okanagan. He has led 17 students at Canadian universities and worked closely with many others, acting in particular as a strong advocate and mentor to women in engineering and science.
“Tom Landecker has been my mentor since I got my master’s degree… In a world full of competing agents, he is the most cooperative and inclusive person I know. My graduate students and I have benefited greatly from his knowledge and wisdom; I am forever grateful for his support and friendship. “
Professor Joe Ann Brown of the University of Calgary
Through mentoring, Tom encouraged students and PhD students, myself included, in the traditionally male-dominated fields of astronomy and engineering, always with real confidence in their abilities and potential to contribute … His way of communicating gives me the opportunity to learn new concepts. and I fill in gaps in my understanding while feeling part of a productive conversation. “
Anna Ordog, current postdoctoral fellow, University of British Columbia-Okanagan
Congratulations Tom!
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