Willeke Mulder

PhD researcher in the field of Astronomy • Leiden, the Netherlands • (+31) 06 31 97 4440 • wmulder@strw.leidenuniv.nl

I am a PhD student at the University of Leiden. At this moment I devote my time to my research project being part of the instrumentation group of the Sterrewacht in Leiden.

At the moment I try to explain my research using a blog that you can find HERE


Experience

Graduate Research, Kapteyn Astronomical Institute & OmegaCEN

Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, Groningen, the Netherlands

DESIGNING, PROTOTYPE OF AN EVOLVING ASTROMETRIC REFERENCE SYSTEM,
SUPERVISED BY DR. G. A. (GIJS) VERDOES KLEIJN

• Understanding the theory behind and the importance of astrometry in future space missions.
• Research for existing astrometric reference systems.
• Designing an evolving reference system using SQL databasing to obtain a system that can deal with updates of future Gaia releases (and eventually Euclid VIS data).

July 2019 - August 2020

Internship in the field of Machine Learning at ASTRON

ASTRON, Dwingeloo, the Netherlands

INTERNSHIP IN COLLABORATION WITH ESCIENCE CENTER AMSTERDAM,
SUPERVISED BY DR. IR. A.J. (ALBERT-JAN) BOONSTRA

• Studying of the LOFAR Radio Telescope design in order to understand the data pipelines and monitor relevant Meta information.
• Examining the application of several machine learning techniques to support the LOFAR System Health Management system.
• Application of an ’Agglomerative Hierarchical Clustering’ algorithm to a LOFAR test dataset using Python.

February 2016 - August 2016

Undergraduate Research, Kapteyn Astronomical Institute & SRON

Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, Groningen, the Netherlands

DESIGNING, BUILDING, TESTING OF THE KAPTEYN RADIO TELESCOPE,
SUPERVISED BY DR. J.P. (JOHN) MCKEAN

• Investigating and determining the required parameters for our system to allow the measuring of the CMB temperature.
• Supporting the building of the horn antenna, back-end and software of the telescope.
• Designing the program turning measures values of the telescope to system temperature plots using Python.

April 2015 - July 2015

Extracurricular Activity

Board & Lecture committee member

Leiden, the Netherlands

LEIDSE WEER EN STERRENKUNDE KRING

• Responsible for the speaker planning.
• Asking scientists from the Leiden Observatory for Lectures.
• Keeping contact with speakers.

November 2021 - PRESENT

Editorial member

Amsterdam, the Netherlands

NEDERLANDSE TIJDSCHRIFT VAN DE NATUURKUNDE

Editing, reviewing of articles that are planned for the NTvN. From July 2019 until July 2020 I was part of the student editorial of the NTvN. After starting my PhD I was asked whether I liked to continue to review articles for the magazine's main editorial.

Juli 2019 - PRESENT

[co-founder] Treasurer, Designer promotional material

Groningen, the Netherlands

ASTRONOMY ON TAP GRONINGEN

• Responsible for creating, collecting, and up-dating the budget of the organisation, provided by three external sponsors
• Designing, managing and ordering of the promotional material of Astronomy on Tap Groningen

July 2019 - July 2020

UNAWE, Universe Awareness

Burgum, the Netherlands

DISCOVERY CLUB

• UNAWE aims to inspire, educate and entertain children in (emergency) refugee centres and to provide them with a sense of much needed normalcy and skills in global citizenship and intercultural awareness.
• Designing of a day program to increase knowledge of astronomy by use of crafting, an interactive astronomy course and giving children the ability to discuss their thoughts about the universe. Goal: two visits to the refugee centre in Burgum to implement our activity. Target audience: 117 children.

July 2018

Guider of the Robotics department

Groningen, the Netherlands

DE JONGE ONDERZOEKERS

•’De Jonge Onderzoekers Groningen’ offers young people, between the age of 8 and 18, knowledge and workshops about technology and science. This is done in a accessible manner where they can choose there department of interest every Wednesday and Saturday.
• Designing an educational program based on Lego Mindstorms Education by using Adobe Illustrator to create instruction cards. By different levels, the attendees will follow tasks explained on different ’instruction cards’. To complete the tasks they have to fill in a separate worksheet. After completing all tasks of a specific level, the attendee receives a certificate.

July 2018

Secretary of study association T.F.V. 'Professor Francken'

University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands

SECRETARY & COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION 2016-2017

• Providing secretarial support in the board of the study association of Applied Physics at the UoG.
• Responsible for the Educational Support of T.F.V. 'Professor Francken'.

June 2016 - June 2017

Association Committees

Groningen, the Netherlands

SECRETARY & COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION 2016-2017

T.F.V. 'PROFESSOR FRANCKEN' and UNITAS SG

2013 Freshmen committee at T.F.V. 'Professor Francken', secretary
2013 Bar & 'Kroegdies' & Introduction week committee at SG Unitas, general member
2014 Bar & Gala committee at SG Unitas, general member the Netherlands
2015 Weekend committee at T.F.V. 'Professor Francken', secretary
2015 Bar committee at SG Unitas, bar team chairman
2016 Weekend committee & Activity committee at T.F.V. 'Professor Francken', chairman
2017 - 2019 Promotion committee at T.F.V. 'Professor Francken', general member

August 2012 - PRESENT

Working Experience

Website and Assistent Outreach coordinator

Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, Groningen, the Netherlands

ASSISTANT OUTREACH COORDINATOR: Organising events under the scope of the the Blaauw Observatory, e.g. Star Gazing Days, Night of the Nights, educational events, e.g. weekendschool, collaboration with UNAWE, exhibitions, updating websites regarding Outreach of the institute and the full responsibility of planning, arranging and organising the visits of the Kapteyn mobile planetarium.
RUG WEBSITE COORDINATOR KAPTEYN ASTRONOMICAL INSTITUTE: Updating the RUG website of the Kapteyn Institute, hosted by the University of Groningen. Obtaining knowledge from staff members of the institute. Collecting and connecting personal requests from staff members. Designing a new clear structure with renewed articles.

May 2018 - PRESENT

Astronomy Promostudent

University of Groningen, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Groningen, the Netherlands

EMPLOYEE FACULTY OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING, VOORLICHTINGSTEAM: Organiser of and assistance during the educational open days at the University of Groningen. Responsible for arranging the speakers, presentations and a proper conduct of the day. Organiser of and assistance during the student for a day at the University of Groningen. Creating educational material for an exoplanet and black hole lecture for high school students.
EMPLOYEE ’JOUWENERGIEVANMORGEN’ TRUCK: Tutoring and assistance of lectures of Physics to high school students at several high schools located in the Netherlands. Responsible for distribution of Information regarding generating renewable energy e.g. Solar panels, piezo crystals. This responsibility goes together with making students enthusiastic about all Natural sciences as physics, mathematics and chemistry.

September 2014 - December 2018

Writing

ADASS XXIX - The astrometric calibration software system for Euclid’s External Surveys

1ST AUTHOR, Proceesings ADASS XXIX

DATA SCIENCE For ESA’s Euclid mission multi-band ground-based imaging data will be provided by multiple surveys that need to be combined into a homogeneously calibrated data set that can be combined with Euclid space-based imaging. The “EXT Processing Function” handles calibration and validation of ground-based images by placing them on an evolving Euclid astrometric and photometric reference frames. The EXT PF and the prototype database table handling system that deals with the evolving reference frame are discussed.

October 2019 - November 2019

ADASS XXIX - Hackathon

2ND AUTHOR, Proceesings ADASS XXIX

DATA SCIENCE & EDUCATION We organised a Youth Hackathon to attract students with an interest in data science and astronomy. The purpose was to show how important data science is in the field of astronomy, and vice versa. In addition, the students had the opportunity to engage with astronomical programming and data in a practical way. We describe the objectives, implementation, results, and evaluation.

October 2019 - November 2019

BSc thesis - Calibration of a 11 GHz Pickett-Potter Horn and measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background

1ST AUTHOR, Kapteyn database

INSTRUMENTATION This project is based on building a 11 GHz radio telescope, with the goal to measure the temperature of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). The whole project was divided among four students which all focused on different topics. In this thesis the calibration of the telescope is devised and tested.

June 2015 - July 2015

Education & Teaching

High Contrast Imaging

Teaching Assistant, Leiden University, the Netherlands

The course teaches MSc students how to take high contrast imaging data, interpreted sensitivities, apply several different HCI algorithms in order to detect faint structures next to bright stars; from exoplanets to circumstellar disks. .

Feb - May '21 & Feb - May '22

Introduction to Programming and Computational Methods

Teaching Assistant, University of Groningen, the Netherlands

The course is an introduction to techniques which can be applied by a student to solve numerical problems related to astronomy.

February 2020 - May 2020

Mathematics & Physics

Science tutor, Discovery Truck, the Netherlands

Teaching children in elementary and students in high schools on awareness of renewable energy and technology. The main purpose of the lectures was to make young people enthusiastic about the natural sciences. Lectures were adapted depending on the level of the public and the preferable language (German, French or English).

September 2013 - September 2018

Mathematics & Physics

Science tutor, Groningen, the Netherlands

Tutoring of multiple high school students, fourth to sixth form at home. All students passed their final exams and gained confidence.

September 2013 - September 2018

Skills

Programming Languages & Tools
Languages
  • Dutch: native language
  • English: intermediate (speaking, reading, writing)
  • French: basic (speaking, reading, writing)
  • German: basic (speaking, reading, writing)

Certificates


Interests

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Astronomy
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Baking
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Cooking
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Crafting
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Drawing
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Family
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Music
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Nature
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Organising
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Reading
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Sporting
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Teaching


My education material