Dr. Taylor Tobin (B.S. Astronomy and Astrophysics, 2013) presented her research on detecting exoplanets with METIS Geosnap, an instrument planned for the European Extremely Large Telescope, at the Great Lakes Exoplanet Area Meeting (GLEAM) at IU in late October. METIS, aka the Mid-infrared ELT Imager and Spectrograph, will work with adaptive optics to detect colder, more mature exoplanets around other stars. The mid-infrared is advantageous for cooler exoplanets because they emit more of their radiation at mind-infrared wavelengths. METIS will provide images in the N-band (7.5-13.5 microns).Taylor is part of a team at the University of Michigan that is testing a new mid-infrared detector, Geosnap, from Teledyne Imaging Sensors. Geosnap should have twice the quantum efficiency of previous generations of mid-IR detectors, as well as lower noise.
While at IU, Taylor worked with Will Clarkson, simulating slitless transmission spectroscopy of transiting exoplanets with the Hubble Space Telescope. After graduating from IU in 2013, Taylor began graduate work in Astronomy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 2015, she received an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship in support of her graduate studies and she graduated with a Ph.D. in 2019, completing a dissertation on observational and theoretical studies of SiO maser polarization toward late-type evolved stars. Taylor spent time at Notre Dame and currently works at the University of Michigan as a Postdoctoral Researcher.
The College of Arts