Professor Victoria Kaspi on the Frontier of Modern Astronomy

An interview conducted and written by Maria Besova

Few scientists can claim to be working at the literal edge of what the universe will reveal. Professor Victoria Kaspi, James McGill Professor of Physics at McGill University in Montreal and co-director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Gravity and Extreme Universe Program, is one of them. Her research on neutron stars and fast radio bursts explores some of the most extreme phenomena known in astrophysics.

Prof. Kaspi at a Chanukah ceremony in the Department of Physics at TAU, with other Astronomy professors. (From left to right: Prof. Shany Danieli, Prof. Victoria Kaspi, Prof. Iair Arcavi, Prof. Jonathan Stern)

In December 2025, Kaspi spent a month at Tel Aviv University as a Lowy Distinguished Guest Professor, hosted by Prof. Ehud Nakar, Head of the Department of Astrophysics. The residency, organised through the Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS), brought her to TAU campus for seminars, research discussions, and meetings with students and faculty.

“The impression I was left with about Tel Aviv University is that it is world-class. Excellent people, excellent students.”

Kaspi’s connection with TAU predates this visit. “I’ve always been a great admirer of Tel Aviv University,” she says. “Professor Iair Arcavi was an Azrieli scholar at CIFAR that I co-direct. He is an expert in transient astrophysics studying objects that explode, and we have some research overlaps. We’ve already been discussing some new projects that I’m quite excited about.”

She also pointed to shared research interests with Professor Amir Levinson. “He has some new work on fast radio bursts, neutron stars and radio pulsars, which I’ve done quite a bit of work on, so there are some very nice connections there as well.”

The visit reinforced Kaspi’s appreciation for the strength of Israel’s astronomy community and the opportunities for continued collaboration:

“I have so much to discuss with the other astronomers based at Tel Aviv University and throughout Israel. I enjoyed both interacting locally and having it as a base to interact throughout the country. I hope to be back certainly at least once a year, maybe twice a year.”

Life at the Edge of the Unknown

For those who picture astronomers hunched over telescopes in quiet observatories, Prof. Kaspi’s description of her daily work offers a correction. She leads a large collaboration of researchers spread across Canada, the United States, and Europe. 

“My days are interspersed with making sure the collaboration runs well, having a good scientific vision for the future, and ensuring the science gets done properly. I also supervise graduate students and postdocs working on interesting science projects.”

The collaboration headed by Prof Kaspi focuses on one of the most puzzling phenomena in modern astrophysics: fast radio bursts.

“Fast radio bursts are massive explosions of radio waves that hint at an even bigger explosion, and we don’t know how nature creates those. Understanding the natural processes that produce these huge explosions is very important.”

CHIME telescope at night

The instrument at the center of this effort is CHIME (the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment), a revolutionary digital radio telescope whose power lies as much in computing as in hardware.

“Fast radio bursts are a brand new phenomenon: nobody predicted them, nobody expected them, and yet it’s one of the hottest areas in astronomy.”

Beyond the mystery of their origins, fast radio bursts have emerged as an unexpected scientific tool in their own right. “Even if we never figure out what they are, they’re fantastic new tools to study the unseen matter in the universe. This matter is so faint that it doesn’t produce enough light. The universe is permeated with lots and lots of plasma and gas that is impossible to study by other means.”

Discoveries like fast radio bursts are part of a much larger transformation taking place across modern astronomy.

A Golden Age of Astronomy and Its Open Questions

Kaspi is unequivocal about the moment the field finds itself in. “It is a truly golden age in radio astronomy,” she says. This is partly due to the developments in the gaming industry, which has produced inexpensive computing components that can be used in astrophysics research to create instruments like the CHIME Telescope.

However, the revolution in astronomy is not limited to radio. “Gravitational wave astronomy is a huge new area as well. We are truly exploring new terrain in the universe, seeing things we never even imagined existed.”

“People have been looking at the sky for thousands of years, but we really are still rewriting basic textbooks on what is out there. Astronomy is one of the few sciences where the introductory textbooks still need new chapters.”

As computing power continues to increase, telescopes are becoming more sensitive and capable of capturing vast amounts of data. Kaspi points to several major instruments shaping astronomy today:

“In Israel, a pretty impressive astrophysical telescope, the Ultrasat, based at the Weizmann Institute, is about to be launched. People from Tel Aviv University are also involved, like Professor Dan Maoz. Also, wide-field surveys that repeatedly scan the same part of the sky to detect transient objects, like the Rubin Observatory, are very important. And of course there’s the James Webb Space Telescope, which operates in the infrared. On the horizon, there are space-based gravitational wave experiments, which are extremely exciting.”

Data from these new instruments may help physicists test fundamental theories about matter and extreme environments. “In neutron stars we see extreme densities, and we don’t know the nature of matter at such high densities. We haven’t really been able to test theories of how matter behaves in extreme magnetic fields,” explains Kaspi.

Kaspi points to other major open questions in astronomy, such as the nature of dark matter or the possibility of life beyond Earth. On that latter question, she is measured but genuinely excited:  

“I think there could be microbial life on moons in our own solar system, places like Europa or Enceladus, where there are hints of liquid water. That is absolutely fascinating.”

On AI, the Next Generation, and Choosing Astronomy

Asked about artificial intelligence and its role in science, Kaspi is careful not to overstate or dismiss it. Her team already uses AI algorithms to sift through vast streams of radio telescope data, but she draws a clear distinction between AI as a tool and AI as a discoverer:

“AI is so clearly very powerful and we harness its capabilities to help us make discoveries. But I’m quite far from seeing AI being able to build a telescope. On the observational front, I still think there’s plenty of room for human ingenuity and talent.”

“I would definitely continue to encourage people to go into science.” 

“The landscape is changing, and it’s worth watching and giving careful thought to, but there is still a place for the human mind,” says Kaspi.

Prof. Kaspi delivers a lecture on fast radio bursts at Tel Aviv University

As for what drew her to astronomy in the first place, Kaspi traces it back to her love of mathematics and the desire to apply it to the study of the natural world. After completing her studies in physics, she spent some time in particle physics before moving into astronomy.

“I ended up in astronomy mainly because for the bulk of astronomy, you can really contribute at a personal level. You can have an idea, write a proposal, get time on a telescope, analyze the data. I like being able to follow an idea through.”

“It’s a good niche for me personally and it’s just fun. There are some days when I can’t believe they pay me to do it.”