4800 Oak Grove Drive
Pasadena, CA 91109Reinier Janssen is a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at JPL working on the development of astronomical instrumentation based on novel superconducting detectors. In particular, he is leading the development of the focal plane arrays for the Terahertz Intensity Mapper balloon mission. Reinier is also improving Kinetic Inductance Detector technology to satisfy the requirements for future far-infrared space missions.
Reinier obtained his PhD at Delft, University of Technology, where he developed Kinetic Inductance Detectors made from NbTiN and Al and was the first to show photon noise limited performance at astronomically relevant loading. After his PhD, Reinier did a 2-year post-doc at the Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale in Paris developing a system to test the effect of high-energy particles on new cryogenic detector technologies.
Throughout his career Reinier has also performed research on the properties of radio-loud active galactic nuclei, their interactions with their host galaxy and their influence on galaxy evolution.
Jan 2019 – now: NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow (Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
Jan 2019 – now: Visiting Research Scholar (California Institute of Technology)
Feb 2017 - Dec 2018: Postdoctoral researcher (Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale, Université Paris-Sud XI)
JPL Postdoc Research Day – Best Poster Award (2021)
NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellowship (2018)