Tyler A. Gordon
Astronomy graduate student at the University of Washington working to improve our ability to discover and characterize exoplanets.
I grew up in Boise, Idaho and completed
my undergraduate degree at Boise State
University, majoring in physics and applied
mathematics with a minor in computer science.
In the fall of 2016 I entered the graduate
program in Astronomy at the University of
Washington. I'm also a member of UW's
Astrobiology program,
through which
I'm working to complete a dual-title
PhD in astronomy and astrobiology. In
addition to my research, I also help to
organize and occasionally speak at
Seattle's
Astronomy on Tap
and manage the
UW Planetarium.
I'm working to mitigate the effects of
stellar variability that act to obscure exoplanet
transits and RV signals. Stellar activity
gives rise to variations in both flux and
radial velocity that imprint themselves onto
the planet's signal. This variability can
be modeled as a Gaussian process.
I'm interested in developing and applying
multi-dimensional GP noise techniques
to this problem in order to further increase
the sensitivity of future exoplanet searches.
Because our ability to understand exoplanets
depends on our understanding of the stars they
orbit, I'm also interested in understanding
stars. I'm currently working on a project to
accurately measure stellar rotation signals for
the entire K2 dataset. In the future I hope
to apply tools developed for this project
to the TESS sample.
For more information on my current projects,
see my research page.