Renée Spiewak is an astrophysics researcher specialising in pulsars — rapidly rotating neutron stars whose radio pulses arrive at Earth with clock-like regularity — and in the software used to time and study them.
Key facts
- Occupation: researcher
- Employer: University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee; University of Manchester; University of Manchester
- Education: Swinburne University of Technology; University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
Education and early research
Spiewak was home-schooled before enrolling at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UWM), where she became one of the first in her family to attend college. Rather than following a conventional lecture-only path, she conducted undergraduate research alongside faculty members from early in her studies. National Science Foundation funding enabled her to travel to Italy and Australia, where she built working relationships with international research groups — connections that would later shape the collaborative character of her postdoctoral career.
Spiewak was among three graduates singled out for recognition at UWM’s December 2015 commencement ceremony, an event at which more than 2,300 students received diplomas.
The MeerTime Pulsar Timing Array
In 2022, Spiewak served as the lead and corresponding author of “The MeerTime Pulsar Timing Array: A census of emission properties and timing potential,” published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, Volume 39, e027 (doi: 10.1017/pasa.2022.19). A pulsar timing array treats an ensemble of millisecond pulsars as a galactic-scale detector: deviations in the expected pulse arrival times across the array carry information about low-frequency gravitational waves passing through the Galaxy.
Spiewak’s role as corresponding author places her at the organisational centre of a large collaborative paper. Her contact address for that paper is [email protected], confirming her University of Manchester affiliation at the time of publication.
European Pulsar Timing Array — second data release
Spiewak is named as an author on the European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) second data release paper “Search for gravitational wave signals,” published in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 678, A50, on October 3, 2023 (doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/202346844). The EPTA combines data from several of Europe’s largest radio telescopes to search for a stochastic gravitational-wave background — a low-level hum of gravitational waves expected to arise from the inspiral of supermassive black-hole binaries.
Pulsar profile variation — Jodrell Bank study
A 2025 paper from the Jodrell Bank observing programme applied a two-dimensional Gaussian process model — implemented in software called psrcelery — to characterise pulse-profile variability in 26 pulsars. The data came from approximately 14 years of observations recorded since 2009 using the digital filterbank backend at the 76-metre Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank.
The analysis found significant profile variations in 21 of the 26 pulsars studied. Of particular interest, the paper reported seven cases where changes in pulse shape appeared to correlate with changes in the pulsar’s spin-down rate — the rate at which the pulsar is gradually losing rotational energy.
Software and open-source work
Her ORCID identifier is 0000-0002-6730-3298, through which her verified publication record is publicly accessible. Software infrastructure — tools for folding pulsar data, fitting timing models and characterising noise — is an integral part of pulsar timing science.
Data sources
Where it appears
- PSR J2322-2650 b completes a year in just 7.8 hours October 30, 2026
Data updated: 2026-10-28