“ASKAP and the SKA are amazing astrophysical instruments that pose enormous challenges for data flow, data management and processing,” he said. “I like working with this mixture of astronomy and IT, and being able to contribute to the SKA is really exciting.”
Before joining ICRAR in August 2010, Professor Wicenec spent over a decade designing and implementing science archival systems for the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO).
He also led the archive development team for ALMA, a radio telescope under construction in Northern Chile. Professor Wicenec and his team work with researchers around the world to develop innovative solutions for database management, data storage and high performance computing.
The Pawsey Centre is managed by iVEC and is current host to the MWA Data Archive, which is growing by approximately 400MB per second! The Pawsey centre also supports ASKAp and will be part of the SKA computing solution.
As the head of ICRAR’s ICT program, Professor Andreas Wicenec’s work ensures scientists will be able to analyse the huge amounts of data generated by next generation radio telescopes.