Wystan Benbow

For more than twenty years I have worked to bring the field of very high energy (VHE; E >100 GeV) gamma-ray astronomy from its infancy into the main stream. I am currently the P.I. / director of VERITAS (https://veritas.sao.arizona.edu/), the world's most sensitive detector of astrophysical very high energy (VHE; E > 100 GeV) gamma rays. Since 1996, I have participated in the Milagro, H.E.S.S. and VERITAS experiments, and through these efforts we have helped increase the VHE source catalog from only three to more than 200 objects. The main focus of my research is VHE and multi-wavelength studies of exotic galaxies, in particular AGN. I am also contributing to the development of the next-generation VHE gamma-ray observatory, the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA; https://www.cta-observatory.org/). CTA will soon begin construction and is expected to expand the VHE source catalog to more than 1000 sources, bringing VHE gamma-ray astronomy into the era of population-driven science.