Shelley Wright
Associate Professor
Shelley’s research focus is on developing innovative astronomical instrumentation and observations using some of the world's largest optical telescopes. Shelley is the Principal Investigator of the UCSD Optical and Infrared Laboratory.
Jérôme Maire
Project Scientist
Jérôme is interested in developing high-angular resolution instrumentation, high-contrast imaging techniques and high-time resolution astronomy.
Saavidra Perera
Post-Doctoral Researcher
Saavidra is interested in optical atmospheric turbulence characterisation and correction techniques for the purpose of astronomy. Currently, she is working on the pyramid wavefront sensor for the Gemini Planet Imager upgrade.
Nils-Erik Bjorn Rundquist
Software Engineer
Nils graduated with a B.S. in Physics with an Astrophysics specialization at UC San Diego. He develops the instrument simulation software for IRIS, OSIRIS, and Liger, and works in the design and development of the data reduction systems for IRIS and Liger.
Aaron Brown
Research and Development Engineer
Aaron specializes in mechanical engineering and has a diverse background in complex fuel systems and aerospace. He is developing instrumentation for SETI, Keck, and TMT.
Sanchit Sabhlok
Physics Graduate Student
Sanchit is a 5th year graduate student from India interested in galaxy formation. Sanchit is using Keck KCWI data to explore the circumgalactic medium of distant quasar. He also has experience working on the Apollo Project.
James Wiley
Physics Graduate Student
James is a 4th year graduate student working on instrumentation for PANOSETI and Keck Liger. He also is exploring science simulations for Liger and investigating Keck KCWI data sets.
Sonata Simonaitis-Boyd
Physics Undergraduate Student
Sonata is a 2nd year undergraduate studying astrophysics and has been analyzing Hubble Space Telescope images studying the environments around distant quasars.
Rachel Kepler
Physics Undergraduate Student
Rachel is a 4th year undergraduate studying astrophysics. She is currently working on obtaining observations with PANOSETI and NIROSETI.
Affiliate Members
Quinn Konopacky
Associate Professor
Quinn uses high resolution techniques on large ground-based telescopes to study star and planet formation and evolution.
Jean-Baptiste Ruffio
Research Scientist
Jean-Baptiste is a Research Scientist studying extra-solar planets at UC San Diego. He has been pioneering statistical and instrumentation techniques to push the frontiers of planet detection and characterization to better understand their formation.
Andrea Zonca
Computational Scientist
Andrea has previous experience in Cosmic Microwave Background data analysis and has a strong expertise in High Performance Computing and software development in Python, he joined the team to help develop the IRIS Data Reduction System.
Clarissa Do-o
Graduate Student
Clarissa is a 2nd year astrophysics graduate student. She studies exoplanet orbital dynamics and works on exoplanet instrumentation. Her current work is on the pyramid wavefront sensor upgrade of the Gemini Planet Imager 2.0 (GPI 2.0), an instrument that aims to directly image and characterize exoplanets.
Jayke Nguyen,
Graduate Student
Jayke is a 1st year graduate student working with Quinn Konopacky developing the new wavefront sensor upgrade for the Gemini Planet Imager 2.0. Beyond instrumentation, his research interests include exoplanet detection/characterization and protoplanetary disk dynamics.
Ben Sappey
Graduate Student
Ben is a 2nd-year graduate student interested in the direct detection of exoplanets and exoplanet atmospheric composition. He works with the KPIC Collaboration and will shortly begin working on the calibration unit for the upcoming High-resolution Infrared Spectrograph for Exoplanet Characterization (HISPEC) instrument planned for Keck.
