Personal information

  • Name: Johannes Buchner
  • Hobbies: Swimming, Volleyball, Hiking, Martial arts, Juggling

Curriculum Vitae

  • 2019-: Postdoctoral researcher at MPE.
  • 2019: Research visitor at Harvard/Smithsonian CfA (2 months).
  • 2015-2018: Postdoctoral fellowship at PUC/Chile. Awarded a FONDECYT fellowship (3 years).
  • 2011-2015: Astrophysics doctoral program in Garching bei München at the Max Planck for extraterrestrial Physics (MPE), High energy/AGN group Awarded Max Planck doctoral stipend.
  • 2009-2011: MSc degree in computer science at AUT University (New Zealand), at the IRASR radio telescope institute (research in preparation for SKA). Awarded Kordia scholarship.
  • 2006-2009: Studied software engineering at the TU Vienna and astronomy at the University of Vienna. Awarded merit scholarship.

Teaching

  • 2021: Lecturer in the BiD4BEST astrostatistics workshop
  • 2019: X-ray spectroscopy workshop (organiser and lecturer)
  • 2019: Training graduate students in research methods, statistics, advanced programming.
  • 2017-2018: Mentoring PUC undergraduate student C. Simmonds. Published a paper (XZ). Now a PhD student in Geneva.
  • 2010: Lecturing/Tutoring in AUT University "Foundations of Physics A" course, 60 students; Tutoring in "Physical database systems"
  • 2009/4 mnths: Uni Vienna, Stellar Astronomy group: MCMC sampler for Bayesian inference
  • 2008: Tutor for "Theoretical Computer Science and Logic", 4 classes/20 students each
  • 2002-2008: Various summer internships in electronics/software companies Porsche Informatik, SkiData, Uni Linz, Spar and others

Grants & Fellowships

  • 2015: Awarded FONDECYT post-doctoral fellowship at PUC, 3 years (ca 100,000 USD).
  • 2011: Awarded Max Planck doctoral stipend at MPE in 2011, 3.5 years (ca 60,000 USD).
  • 2010: Awarded Kordia Scholarship for second MSc year at AUT University.
  • 2008: Awarded Leistungsstipendium (merit stipend) by University of Vienna.

Talks and workshops

see Talks and Workshops page

Publications

see Publications page

Outreach

see Outreach page

Community Service

I regularly referee for ApJ, A&A and MNRAS, and recently also for Nature Astronomy, and commented on PhD & BSc theses. I am among the most active members of the Astrostatistics Facebook group (4438 members). I regularly answer statistics questions emailed to me by colleagues world-wide, in particular related to PyMultiNest. Within the institute (PUC previously and MPE), I actively make myself available as a resource to consulting on topics related to statistics, computing and astrophysics.

Selected Software Projects

(see https://github.com/JohannesBuchner)
  • NWAY: Powerful method to cross-match multiple catalogues
  • XARS: X-ray Monte Carlo simulator for reflection spectroscopy
  • PyMultiNest: Pythonic MultiNest interface and analysis (Python).
  • BXA: Bayesian X-ray analysis (spectral analysis for xspec/sherpa, using PyMultiNest)
  • APEMoST: Fast, self-configuring MCMC Sampler (ANSI C).
  • Jake: Distributed, XMPP-based folder synchronization (Java). • Lead developer, project leader; Developed in a group of six students (9 months).
  • 2006-2010: Patches and Bugtracking for Open Source projects: Videolan VLC, Pidgin, evince.
  • 2005/06: Mozilla Foundation (6 months): IRC-Support, Bug-Squadding for Firefox, Thunderbird, Calendar; developer of several extensions

Skills

  • Fluent in English, spoken and written. German as mother-tongue. Basic Spanish.
  • Programming languages: C/C++, Java, Prolog, Haskell, Visual Basic
  • Scripting languages: Python, PHP, Javascript, GNU Bash, Microsoft Windows Batch.
  • Scientific packages: Scipy, R, Matlab, Maxima, Wolfram-Alpha, IDL
  • Hydrodynamic Simulations: Analysis of EAGLE and Illustris simulations, N-body simulations.
  • Databases: Multiple years of experience with MySQL and Oracle DB (10-11); SQL; XML
  • FOSS, GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD. Competent knowledge of the operating systems and use as server. Extensive knowledge of applications, configuration and networking, Cisco certified.