
Rubicon Research Fellow in Astrophysics, University of Manchester
Hello! I’m Inés, a postdoctoral researcher at ASTRON in the Netherlands. My research centers on radio transients, specifically Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs), which are enigmatic astrophysical phenomena originating from distant galaxies, lasting only a few milliseconds, and detectable solely in radio waves. During my PhD, I used the Apertif radio telescope in the Netherlands, and the MeerKAT radio telescope (South Africa) as a Rubicon fellow at the University of Manchester, UK. Currently, as part of the Astroflash team, I continue my search for radio transients using LOFAR. I completed my PhD in November 2022 and earned my Master’s degree from the Université Paul Sabatier in Toulouse, France, in 2018. I grew up in the beautiful town of Segovia, Spain. Welcome to my website!

Inés Pastor-Marazuela PhD in Astrophysics

Visiting the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (The Netherlands) in May 2022

The day I obtained my PhD degree at the Agnietenkapel (Amsterdam, Nov 1 2022)

Visiting the Lovell Radio telescope during the bluedot festival in July 2023
Experience

Postdoctoral Researcher
April 2025 - Present
ASTRON, the Netherlands
Searching for long, low frequency radio transients in LOFAR data.

Rubicon Research Fellow
Jan 2023 - March 2025
JBCA, University of Manchester, UK
Looking for Fast Radio Bursts using the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa.

PhD Thesis in astrophysics
Sept 2018 - Nov 2022
API, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Exploring the link between Neutron Stars and Fast Radio Bursts.

Master Thesis
Jan 2018 - June 2018
IRAP, Toulouse, France
Search for faint X-ray transients in XMM-Newton data.

Bachelor's and Master's Degree
Sept 2013 - June 2018
Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France
Bachelor in Physics, Master in Astrophysics, Space Science and Planetology. Graduated with honors.
PhD Thesis
Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are extremely bright extragalactic radio flashes, and some of the shortest known astrophysical transients. Most FRBs are only seen once (one-offs), while others repeat. Despite the astounding advances over the last five years, the origin of FRBs remains a mystery, and no multi-wavelength counterparts have been observed. Since extraordinary amounts of energy are required to produce FRBs, compact objects such as neutron stars are potential progenitors. In this thesis, I investigated the properties of repeater and one-off FRBs to study their links to neutron stars with extreme magnetic fields, known as magnetars. To this end, I performed multi-frequency observations and searches of both neutron stars and FRBs. First, I observed high-energy neutron stars at low radio-frequencies, to understand how bright radio bursts could be produced (Ch. 2). I further developed an algorithm to detect faint X-ray transients in an attempt to search for high-energy counterparts to FRBs (Ch. 3). Next, I carried out multi-frequency radio observations of an FRB with a periodic activity cycle, and show that our detections strongly favour an ultra-long period magnetar interpretation (Ch. 4). Finally, I present the discoveries from the Apertif FRB survey, where we found 24 new one-off FRBs that allow us to better characterise the properties of the FRB population (Ch. 5,6). The emission and environment around extragalactic magnetars can explain the complex morphology and propagation properties observed in our FRB sample. Therefore, the results of this thesis strengthen the association of both one-off and repeater FRBs to magnetars.

Exploring the link
between Neutron Stars
and Fast Radio Bursts
Publications
Below you can find the list of my first author publications. For a full list of my publications and telegrams, click the button at the bottom.

Inés Pastor-Marazuela, Alexa C. Gordon, Ben Stappers, Ilya S. Khrykin, Nicolas Tejos, Kaustubh Rajwade, Manisha Caleb, Mayuresh P. Surnis, Laura N. Driessen, Sunil Simha, Jun Tian, J. Xavier Prochaska, Ewan Barr, Wen-Fai Fong, Fabian Jankowski, Lordrick Kahinga, Charles D. Kilpatrick, Michael Kramer, Lluis Mas-Ribas
Submitted to MNRAS

Inés Pastor-Marazuela, Joeri van Leeuwen, Anna Bilous, Liam Connor, Yogesh Maan, Leon Oostrum, Emily Petroff, Dany Vohl, Kelley M. Hess, Emanuela Orrù, Alessio Sclocco, Yuyang Wang
Astronomy & Astrophysics, Volume 693, id.A279, 30 pp.

Inés Pastor-Marazuela
Accepted for publication in the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions A, theme issue on multi-messenger gravitational lensing

Inés Pastor-Marazuela, Joeri van Leeuwen, Anna Bilous, Liam Connor, Yogesh Maan, Leon Oostrum, Emily Petroff, Samayra Straal, Dany Vohl, E. A. K. Adams, B. Adebahr, Jisk Attema, Oliver M. Boersma, R. van den Brink, W. A. van Cappellen, A. H. W. M. Coolen, S. Damstra, H. Dénes, K. M. Hess, J. M. van der Hulst, B. Hut, A. Kutkin, G. Marcel Loose, D. M. Lucero, Á. Mika, V. A. Moss, H. Mulder, M.J. Norden, T. A. Oosterloo, Kaustubh Rajwade, D. van der Schuur, A. Sclocco, R. Smits, and J. Ziemke
Astronomy & Astrophysics, Volume 678, id.A149, 18 pp.

I. Pastor-Marazuela, S. M. Straal, J. van Leeuwen and V. I. Kondratiev
Astronomy & Astrophysics, Volume 672, id.A151, 7 pp.

Inés Pastor-Marazuela, Liam Connor, Joeri van Leeuwen, Yogesh Maan, Sander ter Veen, Anna Bilous, Leon Oostrum, Emily Petroff, Samayra Straal, Dany Vohl, Jisk Attema, Oliver M. Boersma, Eric Kooistra, Daniel van der Schuur, Alessio Sclocco, Roy Smits, Elizabeth A. K. Adams, Björn Adebahr, W. J. G. de Blok, Arthur H. W. M. Coolen, Sieds Damstra, Helga Dénes, Kelley M. Hess, Thijs van der Hulst, Boudewijn Hut, V. Marianna Ivashina, Alexander Kutkin, G. Marcel Loose, Danielle M. Lucero, Ágnes Mika, Vanessa A. Moss, Henk Mulder, Menno J. Norden, Tom Oosterloo, Emanuela Orrú, Mark Ruiter, and Stefan J. Wijnholds
Nature, Volume 596, Issue 7873, p.505-508

I. Pastor-Marazuela, N. A. Webb, D. T. Wojtowicz and J. van Leeuwen
Astronomy & Astrophysics, Volume 640, id.A124, 21 pp.
Projects
Since I started doing research during my Master's thesis, I have been working on different projects that go from the lowest frequencies (radio) to the highest (X-rays). The main projects I have contributed to are the following:
Astroflash
Astroflash is a research group that uses various radio telescopes around the world to study radio transients. My current work consists on searching for radio transients in archival LOFAR data from the LoTSS survey.
MeerTRAP
MeerTRAP is a project at the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa that searches the sky for galactic and extragalactic radio transients, such as RRATs and FRBs .
ALERT
The Apertif Lofar Exploration at the Radio Transient sky was a project that used mainly the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope to search for new one-off FRBs and follow up repeaters.
EXOD
The EPIC-pn XMM-Newton Outburst Detector is an algorithm to search for faint, fast X-ray transients in data from the XMM-Newton space telescope.
Media Appearances & Outreach
From interviews with journalists to talks at scientific conferences, I have been featured in various media outlets. Check out some of my appearances to learn more about my research and insights into the field of Fast Radio Bursts.
The Jodcast is an astronomy podcast run by PhD students at the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics (University of Manchester) that has been running since 2006! Before I left the University of Manchester, in March 2025, I gave an interview about FRBs and the work I had been doing in Manchester. Give it a listen if you want to hear me make weird noises to represent FRBs!


Using the radio telescope at Westerbork, The Netherlands, astronomers have discovered two dozen of the unexplained Fast Radio Bursts. After zooming in on the signal of the distant bursts, the astronomers found a striking similarity to the radio flashes emitted by nearby, known neutron stars. The discovery is remarkable because these nearby neutron stars already produce more energy than anything achievable on Earth. The distant stars that emit the Fast Radio Bursts must somehow generate an astounding one billion times more energy than the nearby ones. The work was published in January 2025.

Bluedot is a science and music festival that takes place annually at the Jodrell Bank Observatory, next to the iconic Lovell Radio Telescope.
In 2023, I participated in the festival, where I gave a talk about Fast Radio Bursts.
Interview for Telesegovia, September 8th 2021
