Biography:
Javier Bussons, Senior Lecturer in Astronomy and Astrophysics at Universidad de Alcalá (UAH),
since February 2023, was born in Teruel, Aragón, Spain in 1969.
He received a Bachelor’s degree in physics and astrophysics from Universidad Complutense de
Madrid in 1994, followed a Master of Science (M.Sc.) programme as ERASMUS student with the
High Energy Astrophysics Group at University College Dublin and went on to obtain there a PhD in
Experimental Physics awarded by the National University of Ireland in 1998.
Bussons began his academic career with three postdoctoral research positions: with the University
of Maryland (USA, 1999-2001), stationed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico; with
the Conseil National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS, France, 2001-2004), stationed at the
University of Montpellier and the Themis Observatory; and with the Spanish Council for Scientific
Research (CSIC, 2005-2007), stationed at the Instituto de Física de Cantabria. During this period,
his research was focused on high-energy gamma-ray (TeV) and X-ray astrophysics, studying
violent-universe objects such as Active Galactic Nuclei, Supernova Remnants or Pulsar-Wind
Nebulae and phenomena such as Extensive Air Cosmic Ray Showers or Gamma-Ray Bursts as
member of international collaborations such as Whipple-VERITAS, MILAGRO, CELESTE, HESS,
EURECA-calorimeter or Athena.
He moved to the University of Murcia (UMU) as Interim Lecturer in 2007 where he co-founded the
Particle Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology group (FISPAC) and earned his Tenure Lecturer
position in 2010. He devoted a five-year leave (2015-2020) to intense outreach, secondary-school
teaching and community-building activities in Sigüenza, his hometown. In 2018 he joined Engineer
Dr. Manuel Prieto (UAH) in setting up a Spanish node of the e-Callisto network of solar radiospectrometers, including instruments in Alcalá, Sigüenza and Peralejos de las Truchas, and a new project called CELESTINA: Castillian E-Callisto Leading Experimentation in Solar-Terrestrial
Interaction with Novel Antennas (2019-2023), now followed by the SPARC project: SPace-weather
Awareness and Research Center (2024-2027) of which he is Principal Investigator (PI).
Much of Bussons’ recent efforts have been directed towards making Ground-Based Low-Cost Solar
Radio Observations more useful to the Solar Physics and Space Weather communities and towards
worldwide capacity-building in these areas. As a result, a new Data Center (Astrodoncel:
https://astrodoncel.uah.es/) has recently been opened in La Casa del Doncel, Sigüenza. In 2024 he
was promoted to e-Callisto co-PI side by side with the network founder, Prof. Christian Monstein.
Bussons has (co-)authored 39 refereed papers with over 4000 citations (H-index 24) as well as more than 50 newspaper articles, a Massive Online Open Course, a great number of conferences,
seminars, appearances in radio and TV, open days, science fairs and public astronomic
observations/events.
He is the founder of the Science Summer Camps at UMU, the Astrophysics
Summer School and the Spring University in Sigüenza and has co-founded the AstroGuada
Amateur Astronomy Association and the “Cielos de Guadalajara” Starlight Dark Sky Reserve.
Prof. Bussons is married and has three children.
https://celestina.web.uah.es/wordpress/en/celestina
https://www.e-callisto.org/
https://cospar2024samarkand.samdu.uz/index.php