Paul Groot

Background

About Paul Groot

Professor of astronomy at Radboud University Nijmegen and SARChI Chair in Fast Transients and Gravitational Wave Astrophysics at the University of Cape Town / SAAO. Co-founder of the Department of Astrophysics at the Radboud University. As of 2025, NL Scientific Delegate in the Council of the European Southern Observatory. As of 2017, NRF SARChI Chair at the University of Cape Town and the South Africa Astronomical Observatory. As of 2005, Professor of Astronomy, Radboud University, The Netherlands. From 2006-2016 chair of the Radboud Department of Astrophysics (15 faculty and 60+ scientific employees). From 2012-2016 Chair of the Board of Directors, Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA) From 2012-2013 Director of Education Mathematics, Physics and Astronomy, Radboud University. Paul Groot received his PhD cum laude at the University of Amsterdam in For the discovery of optical afterglows to gamma-ray bursts he co-received the 2001 EU Descartes Prize. He was a CfA Fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics from and spent a sabbatical at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 2011. He is a member of the LIGO/Virgo team that first detected gravitational waves, and shared in the 2016 Special Breakthrough Prize and the 2016 Gruber Prize. As of 2017 he is also at the University of Cape Town and the SAAO. Research: Research is focused on ultracompact binary systems, the progenitors of supernovae Type Ia, the producers of gravitational waves and the sites of transient phenomena discovered in large scale transient surveys. Co-Principal Investigator on the European Galactic Plane Surveys to chart the stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy. Project Scientist on the X-Shooter spectrograph for the Very Large Telescope at the European Southern Observatory. Discoverer of the optical afterglows of gamma ray bursts in 1997. Principal Investigator on the BlackGEM array of optical telescopes for electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational wave bursts, located at the ESO La Silla Observtory in Chile. Principal investigator of the MeerLICHT optical telescope in South Africa. From 2009-2014, member of the Young Academy (DJA) of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (KNAW). As of 2017 member of the Koninklijke Hollandse Maatschappij der Wetenschappen (KHMW). Planetoid 12947 "Paulgroot", going around the Sun in 3.3yrs for the next few billion years. Personal motto:'The sky is not the limit. It is just the start of space'