Calvin Barth Netterfield (born 29 April 1968), known as Barth Netterfield, is a Canadian astrophysicist, and a Professor in the Department of Astronomy and the Department of Physics at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

.http://www.astro.utoronto.ca/~netterfield/ Barth Netterfield personal home page at U of T He is a leading expert in the development of balloon-borne telescopes.http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/Prizes-Prix/Steacie-Steacie/Profiles-Profils_eng.asp?ID=1010 Steacie award profile page at NSERC (for citation a, see paragraph 7) 2007 CAP Herzberg Medal press release These are astrophysical experiments that are lifted into the

stratosphere The stratosphere () is the second-lowest layer of the atmosphere of Earth, located above the troposphere and below the mesosphere. The stratosphere is composed of stratified temperature zones, with the warmer layers of air located higher ...

high-altitude balloon High-altitude balloons or stratostats are usually uncrewed balloons typically filled with helium or hydrogen and released into the stratosphere, generally attaining between above sea level. In 2013, a balloon named BS 13-08 reached a record alti ...

s where they conduct observations that would be hindered by atmospheric interference if done on the ground. Netterfield is primarily known for his work in

observational cosmology Observational cosmology is the study of the structure, the evolution and the origin of the universe through observation, using instruments such as telescopes and cosmic ray detectors. Early observations The science of physical cosmology as it is ...

, specifically in developing instrumentation to observe the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. Most notably, he was a key member of the instrument team for

BOOMERANG A boomerang () is a thrown tool typically constructed with airfoil sections and designed to spin about an axis perpendicular to the direction of its flight, designed to return to the thrower. The origin of the word is from Australian Aborigin ...

, the experiment that made one of the first accurate determinations of the age, geometry, and mass-energy content of the universe. More recently, he has delved into the field of

submillimetre astronomy Submillimetre astronomy or submillimeter astronomy (see spelling differences) is the branch of observational astronomy that is conducted at submillimetre wavelengths (i.e., terahertz radiation) of the electromagnetic spectrum. Astronomers plac ...

and the physics of

star formation Star formation is the process by which dense regions within molecular clouds in interstellar space—sometimes referred to as "stellar nurseries" or "star-forming regions"—Jeans instability, collapse and form stars. As a branch of astronomy, sta ...

, through his involvement with the

BLAST Blast or The Blast may refer to: *Explosion, a rapid increase in volume and release of energy in an extreme manner *Detonation, an exothermic front accelerating through a medium that eventually drives a shock front *A planned explosion in a mine, ...

telescope.http://blastexperiment.info/names.php BLAST experiment list of collaborators Netterfield was featured prominently in BLAST!, a documentary film about the 2005 and 2006 flights of BLAST from

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

and

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...

Early life and education

Netterfield grew up in

Surrey, British Columbia Surrey is a city in British Columbia, Canada. It is located south of the Fraser River on the Canada–United States border. It is a member municipality of the Metro Vancouver regional district and metropolitan area. Mainly a suburban city, Surr ...

. He developed an interest in astronomy from an early age simply by going outside and looking at the stars.http://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/sciences/netterfield_barth.asp "Dr. Netterfield is Having a BLAST", article at the Canadian Space Agency website (paragraph 3) His interest in physics was also fostered by his Grade 10 mathematics teacher, who encouraged him to read about relativity. Netterfield graduated high school from

Queen Elizabeth Secondary School Queen Elizabeth Secondary is a public high school in Surrey, British Columbia part of School District 36 Surrey. The school is named after Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, who first visited Canada in 1939. It was ranked 248 of 516 according to ...

, Surrey, British Columbia, in 1986. Netterfield eventually moved to Minnesota where he earned a B.S. degree in

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

from Bethel College. He went on to do his Ph.D. in physics at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

under the supervision of

Lyman Page Lyman Alexander Page, Jr. (born September 24, 1957) is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Physics at Princeton University. He is an expert in observational cosmology and one of the original co-investigators for the Wi ...

.http://catalog.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBRecID=935258&v2=1&SEQ=20120608010305&PID=dolscMJPPoyG4n8ulo4iefEL1 Doctoral thesis at Princeton University Library He completed his thesis in 1995 on the measurement of the degree-scale

anisotropy Anisotropy () is the structural property of non-uniformity in different directions, as opposed to isotropy. An anisotropic object or pattern has properties that differ according to direction of measurement. For example, many materials exhibit ve ...

of the CMB with the ground-based experiment

Saskatoon Saskatoon () is the largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It straddles a bend in the South Saskatchewan River in the central region of the province. It is located along the Trans-Canada Hig ...

. He then became a Millikan Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small group of institutes ...

until 1999, when he was granted a faculty position at the University of Toronto.

Current Research

Professor Netterfield is the head of the Balloon Astrophysics or "BALLAST" research group at the University of Toronto. Along with his students, and in collaboration with research groups from other institutions worldwide, he is currently working on the design, assembly, and testing of three balloon-borne telescopes. The first, BLAST-Pol, is the BLAST telescope with added sensitivity to

polarization Polarization or polarisation may refer to: Mathematics *Polarization of an Abelian variety, in the mathematics of complex manifolds *Polarization of an algebraic form, a technique for expressing a homogeneous polynomial in a simpler fashion by ...

, which enables it to observe

magnetic field A magnetic field (sometimes called B-field) is a physical field that describes the magnetic influence on moving electric charges, electric currents, and magnetic materials. A moving charge in a magnetic field experiences a force perpendicular ...

s in star formation regions. BLAST-Pol flew from Antarctica in December 2010 and is scheduled to do so again in December 2012. He is also working on

Spider Spiders (order (biology), order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight limbs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude spider silk, silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and ran ...

, a balloon-borne CMB polarization experiment that is designed to detect the imprint on the CMB of primordial

gravitational waves Gravitational waves are oscillations of the gravitational field that travel through space at the speed of light; they are generated by the relative motion of gravitating masses. They were proposed by Oliver Heaviside in 1893 and then later by H ...

that are predicted to have been produced by

inflation In economics, inflation is an increase in the average price of goods and services in terms of money. This increase is measured using a price index, typically a consumer price index (CPI). When the general price level rises, each unit of curre ...

in the very early universe. His third active project, the Super-pressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT), is a wide-field, diffraction-limited, near-infrared to near-ultraviolet telescope capable of imaging resolution and quality at a level that rivals the

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the Orbiting Solar Observatory, first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most ...

. As one of the first astronomical imagers of its kind intended for the stratosphere, SuperBIT serves a prototype instrument for a more ambitious balloon-borne

optical Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultravio ...

wide-field imaging telescope (under the project name GigaBIT).

Other interests

Netterfield is an avid

aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' include fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air aircraft such as h ...

enthusiast and computer programmer. He is the original developer of kst, an open-source, real-time data plotting program that he works on while riding the TTC.

Awards

* 2008 NSERC E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship * 2007 Canadian Association of Physicists Herzberg Medal * 2001 Sloan Foundation Fellowshiphttp://www.cifar.ca/barth-netterfield CIFAR profile page

References

External links

Personal Home Page

Ideacity Talk
*
BLAST Experiment Page

{{DEFAULTSORT:Netterfield, Barth 1968 births Living people 21st-century Canadian astronomers Canadian astrophysicists Academic staff of the University of Toronto Bethel University (Minnesota) alumni Princeton University alumni People from Surrey, British Columbia