Rene Breton
Deputy Head Of Department at The University of Manchester
Stevenage, England, United Kingdom
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolRene Breton is an accomplished astrophysicist and academic leader with 14 years of experience driving research and teaching at top UK institutions, currently serving as Deputy Head of Department and Professor of Astrophysics at The University of Manchester. He combines deep domain expertise in pulsars, transients and radio/optical astronomy with strong skills in data science, mathematical modelling, Python and high-performance computing. Rene has a track record of strategic research leadership—former Director of Research responsible for REF2021 preparation and grant reviews—while actively supervising PhD students and shaping departmental priorities. Trained with a PhD from McGill, he pairs rigorous theoretical insight with practical computational approaches and a talent for public communication developed early as a science journalist. A pragmatic collaborator, he often translates complex astrophysical problems into scalable code and models that inform both teaching and large-scale observatory projects.
14 years of coding experience
5 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Science, Physics, Bachelor of Science, Physics at Université LavalPhD, Astrophysics, PhD, Astrophysics at McGill University
English, French
Github Skills (14)
curve9
synthesis8
stellar8
ubuntu2
debian2
python2
capistrano2
packaging1
rest-api1
typescript1
undo1
api1
metalsmith1
package1
Programming languages (3)
Github contributions (5)
bretonr/presto
Nov 2015 - Jun 2022
Contributions:2 pushes, 1 branch in 6 years 7 months
bretonr/bretonr.github.io
Sep 2019 - Mar 2025
Github Pages template for academic personal websites, forked from mmistakes/minimal-mistakes
Contributions:31 pushes in 5 years 6 months
templategithub-pages-templatemmistakesmistakesjekyll
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