About me

I joined the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh as a Reader in 2020. My research interests include brown dwarfs, exoplanets, low-mass stars, and star and planet formation. I use both ground- and space-based telescopes, and I specialize in observational techniques like adaptive optics and high-precision astrometry. You can download a PDF version of my CV here.

"Weighing" Brown Dwarfs & Exoplanets

For over a decade, I have been using laser guide star adaptive optics at Keck Observatory, as well as images from the Hubble Space Telescope and Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, to monitor the orbits of brown dwarf binary systems and measure their masses. The animation of colorful dots shows top-down views of their orbits where 1 second corresponds to 3 years in real life; also on YouTube. I also measure the masses of directly imaged planets like HR 8799 e by using astrometry from ESA's Gaia mission.

Planets in Binary Systems

As part of my interest in star and planet formation, I also study binary systems where one star hosts one or more planets. For example, this animation shows the ancient five-planet system Kepler-444 and, as it zooms out, the orbit of its very eccentric stellar companion. Because we know stars must form before planets, this stellar companion would have severely truncated and depleted the protoplanetary disk from which these Mars-sized planets formed.

The Ultracool Sheet

My research depends on having a comprehensive collection of information on all "ultracool" dwarfs (objects with spectral types of late-M, L, T, and Y) and directly imaged planets. Our group shares our current compendium of 3000+ objects as a Google Sheet at bit.ly/UltracoolSheet. You never know what you might find in a spreadsheet!


CV and Publications

Download a pdf version of my CV here.

A list of my publications via ADS can be found here.

Contact:

tdupuy@roe.ac.uk
Office: Stobie 6 | Phone: 0131 668 8351
Royal Observatory Edinburgh
Blackford Hill, Edinburgh EH9 3HJ