Juande Santander-Vela

Juande has loved computers and astronomy since he was a kid: computers gave him a blank canvas for creating solutions to different problems, and to visualise complex problems; and astronomy makes concrete the incredible numbers that make up our universe: billions of galaxies, with billions of stars, at billions of kilometres of distance. He got his Ph.D. on the intricacies of sharing radio astronomical data in a way that was compatible with both existing computer software for astronomy, and with tools for other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, and worked at the European Southern Observatory in Munich in making astronomical data available through the International Virtual Observatory Alliance.

He is currently an Element System Engineer for the Square Kilometre Array Organisation, and as such he aims to make sure that it is possible to create the computing facilities that will be able to digest the streams of SKA data, and do it reliably and sustainably, but also that the control system of the telescope can make all elements work together. Citizen Science in the SKA Era I will present the big data challenges of the SKA in the framework of the current big data capabilities available to citizens. I’ll also show some big citizen science projects making use of big data, cloud computing, and citizen engagement to do actual science, and I will try to imagine how in the future some SKA science might be done via this engagement, and also improve other parts of everyday life.

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