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Francisco Förster Burón

Welcome to my personal webpage!

About Me

I work at the intersection of astronomy, artificial intelligence, and data science.

My research focuses on time-domain astrophysics, supernova science, and the development of tools for astronomical discovery.

I am an astronomer and Full Professor at the Data and Artificial Intelligence Initiative (IDIA) at Universidad de Chile. I am director of the Millennium Institute of Astrophysics (MAS) since 2024, Research Scientist at the Center for Mathematical Modelling (CMM) at Universidad de Chile, and Associate Researcher at the The Center of Excellence in Astrophysics and Related Technologies (CATA). I used to be the principal investigator of the Automatic Learning for the Rapid Classification of Events (ALeRCE), a Vera C. Rubin Community broker (2018-2024), and the High Cadence Transient Survey (HiTS, 2012-2018). I led the installation of the CHASE 500 cm robotic telescope in CTIO (first light Oct 2010). I did my Ph.D. thesis on Type Ia Supernovae progenitors at the University of Oxford (2009) with Prof. Philipp Podsiadlowski.

I am also the academic coordinator of the Master of Data Science (MDS) at Universidad de Chile.

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Research Interests

Time-Domain Astrophysics
Astroinformatics
Machine Learning for Astronomical Transients
Scientific Software Development

Publications

Refereed publications in ADS

Google Scholar

ORCID