Dr Laura Driessen

Astro Laura

Dr Laura Driessen

I’m a radio astronomer, science communicator, 2023-2024 Superstar of STEM and brand ambassador for the Rise & Shine Kindergarten Orbit Centre of Imagination.

I’m available for media and keynote talks. Email enquiries to Space@AstroLaura.com

I search for radio stars and am a project scientist (a team leader) of the Variables and Slow Transients Survey (VAST) alongside the Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope team. We look for things that change in the sky, all the fun things like supernova explosions, pulsars, fast radio bursts, blackhole binaries, blackholes ripping things apart (tidal disruption events), flaring stars and even mystery objects that we have no idea what they are (yet)!

I’m currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Sydney Institute for Astronomy, at the University of Sydney.

Check out my latest research work, the Sydney Radio Stars Catalogue!

About me
Media
Publications
Keynote talks

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Are you curious about the cosmos? Bemused by black holes? Mystified by masers? Submit a question here and I’ll make a short video to answer your question!

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A woman, Dr Laura Driessen, posing in front of a whole bunch of antennas. She has wavy blonde hair and cool glasses with blue rims. She’s wearing a white t-shirt under a pinafore dress. The pinafore dress is light blue and it has two Christmas-tree antennas on it. These antennas are part of the SKA-low test array, so they are antennas for looking at space! The bunch of antennas in the background are the same Christmas tree antennas that you can see on Laura’s dress. This is the SKA-low test array. This is a photo taken by Dr Andrew Zic at Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory. The sky is a beautiful bright blue with streaky white clouds and the dirt is the lovely orange-red of the Australian outback.