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About

Will Saunders is an astronomical instrumentation specialist whose career has centered on developing cutting-edge spectroscopic technologies that enable large-scale galaxy surveys and advance our understanding of the cosmos. His most significant contributions lie in fiber positioning systems, integral field spectroscopy, and wide-field survey instrumentation. Saunders played a pivotal role in developing Starbug technology — innovative self-motile piezoelectric robotic devices capable of independently and simultaneously positioning optical fibers across a telescope's focal plane — which underpins the TAIPAN instrument at the Australian Astronomical Observatory and serves as a prototype for the Giant Magellan Telescope's MANIFEST system. His sustained involvement in the Hector instrument project, spanning concept studies from 2012 through to its successful commissioning on the Anglo-Australian Telescope in 2022, has been instrumental in delivering a transformative integral field spectrograph now conducting a 15,000-galaxy survey of the nearby universe. He also contributed to the ambitious Dark Energy Spectrometer concept for the Blanco 4-meter Telescope. With cumulative citations across his portfolio reflecting consistent recognition from the astronomical instrumentation community, Saunders exemplifies the critical role instrument builders play in enabling the next generation of discoveries in galaxy evolution and cosmology.