Why are telescopes built on mountain tops? Why don't we simply put every telescope in space? And why on Earth is there a large optical telescope in rainy Victoria? . Nienke is a postdoctoral fellow at University of Victoria at the Physics and Astronomy department, working on planet formation. During her career she has done astronomical observations with telescopes in Chile, Hawaii, California, Spain and Canary islands and certainly knows how remote these locations are. When building a telescope, there is a whole lot more to consider than a dark sky.
Nienke van der Marel is a Banting postdoctoral fellow at University of Victoria since December 2019, working on planet formation using the revolutionary ALMA telescope. Before this she worked for 2 years as NRC postdoctoral fellow at the Herzberg institute for Astronomy, and 2 years as Parrent fellow at the University of Hawaii. She received her PhD cum laude in 2015 at Leiden University in the Netherlands, where she originates. Nienke is also the founder and host of Nerd Nite Victoria, with public science talks in an informal setting every month since August 2018.