Richard Townsend

Richard Townsend is a Professor in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he has been since Fall 2008 and served as Department Chair since 2020. His research focuses on the theoretical and computational study of massive stars, particularly their rotation, pulsation, mass loss, and magnetic fields. He is the developer of widely used astrophysical software packages such as GYRE and MSG.

His recent work includes implementing 'burn modifiers' in MESA-Web to control thermonuclear burning effects, releasing GYRE 7.1 for stellar oscillation modeling, and creating the MSG 1.3 package for spectral synthesis. Townsend's interdisciplinary activities extend to 3D printing mechanical components like torque limiters for hobbyist projects.

He holds a townsend@astro.wisc.edu email and integrates software development with astrophysical research, emphasizing open-source tools and public accessibility.