I'm a postdoctoral researcher in radio astronomy at Caltech and the Systems Scientist for the DSA-110 radio telescope array at the Owens Valley Radio Observatory.

As part of the DSA-110 software team, I lead the development of the calibration and imaging portions of the real-time, autonomous, instrument pipeline. As the Systems Scientist for the DSA-110, I lead the commissioning effort of the instrument, which includes measuring and improving the performance, including both sensitivity and persistence, of subsystems of the instrument.


The DSA-110 is searching for very bright, short-duration, bursts of radio emission called Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs), which originate outside of our Galaxy. The DSA-110 will localize hundreds of these bursts to determine which galaxies they are coming from. This will help answer the questions concerning the nature of the sources of FRBs and the distribution of material within and between galaxies.

I’m interested in extracting meaningful information from large datasets and have developed an algorithm for high-resolution 3-D imaging of plasma structures in our Galaxy from their lensing effects on radio emission from pulsars, searched for FRBs in interferometric data from a global array of radio telescopes, and designed new ways to study small-scale structure in distant galaxies using FRBs.

Contact Me

  • Address

    Office 217
    Cahill Center for Astronomy & Astrophysics

  • Mailing Address

    1200 E California Blvd.
    MC: 249-17
    Pasadena, CA, 91125

  • Email

    dana.simard@astro.caltech.edu