Mark J. Bentum

“By making space-based low frequency radio astronomy possible, we will open an unexplored frequency band for science. I’m looking forward to very exciting results.”

Mark Bentum is a Full Professor in Radio Science with the research group Electromagnetics at the TU/e department of Electrical Engineering. He is also affiliated with the Netherlands Foundation for Research in Radio Astronomy (ASTRON), where he is head of the radio group. His main research interest is in radio astronomy, particular in low frequency radio astronomy. He is the initiator of the OLFAR project, the Orbiting Low Frequency Antennas for Radio astronomy. OLFAR is a space-based radio telescope to observe the sky at frequencies below 30 MHz consisting of many small satellites. Opening this virtually unexplored frequency band will possibly lead to new scientific insights, like the formation of the Universe and the detection of magnetized exoplanets.  

At TU/e his work focuses on various aspects of this radio telescope, such as the antenna systems, the calibration of the array, the clocking and synchronization of all the elements, localization, interference mitigation and the signal processing aspects of the telescope. Mark Bentum is a senior member of the IEEE, vice chair of the IEEE Benelux section, initiator and chair of the IEEE Benelux AESS/GRSS chapter, and has acted as a reviewer for various conferences and journals.

Mark Bentum studied Electrical Engineering) at the University of Twente (Enschede, The Netherlands) where he obtained his MSc degree (with honours, 1991) and his PhD degree (1995). In 1996, he joined the Netherlands Foundation for Research in Radio Astronomy (ASTRON) where he currently is the head of the radio group. From 2005 until 2008, he was responsible for the construction of the first software radio telescope in the world, LOFAR (Low Frequency Array). From 2008 until 2017, Mark Bentum was an Associate Professor of Short Range Radio in the Telecommunication Engineering Group at the University of Twente. In 2017, he became a Full Professor in Radio Science with the research group Electromagnetics at Eindhoven University of Technology. Mark Bentum holds also an MBA degree from Nyenrode Business Universiteit (2002).