Ryan Dungee Astronomer

About Me

Me

I'm a Ph.D Candidate at the Institute for Astronomy of the University of Hawaii. My thesis work is an even split between science and instrumentation. On the science side, I am using rotation periods derived from ground-based time series photometry to provide much needed calibrations for the spin down models of low mass stars. For my instrumentation work, I am deeloping a new control system for ground layer adaptive optics (GLAO) systems. The aim is to utilize data on wind velocity versus altitude to enable better tomography, and thus prevent the inclusion of upper atmospheric turbulence in the ground layer correction. Such work would facilitate wide-field imaging in crowded fields, something needed to push the spin down calibrations to even lower masses.

Research Interests

Broadly speaking, my interests are in the formation and evolution of both stars and exoplanets, as well as developing new instrumentation that pushes the boundaries of what we know about these subjects. Of particular interest to me is adaptive optics instrumentation, especially on the software side of things. This includes, but is not limited to, developing new control algorithms, focal plane wavefront sensing, and applications for machine learning. In addition to this I spend a great deal of time thinking about how we can better understand atmospheric turbulence, and how site characteristics can be leveraged to improve on existing control approaches.

Education

University of Pennsylvania
  • B.A. in Physics, Fall 2015
  • M.S. in Physics, Spring 2016
University of Hawaii
  • M.S. in Astronomy, Spring 2018
  • Ph.D. in Astronomy, Fall 2022 (Expected)

Publications

First Author

Dungee, Ryan; Chun, Mark; Hayano Yutaka. "On the feasibility of using a laser guide star adaptive optics system in the daytime" 2019, JATIS, 5, 019002
Dungee, Ryan; Boogert, Adwin; DeWitt, Curtis N. and 10 coauthors. "High-resolution SOFIA/EXES Spectroscopy of SO2 Gas in the Massive Young Stellar Object MonR2 IRS3: Implications for the Sulfur Budget" 2018, ApJL, 868, L10

Contributing Author

Lai, Olivier; Chun, Mark; Dungee, Ryan and 2 coauthors. "DO-CRIME: dynamic on-sky covariance random interaction matrix evalutation, a novel method for calibrating adaptive optics systems" 2021, MNRAS, 501, 3443-3456
Barr, Andrew G.; Boogert, Adwin; DeWitt, Curtis N. and 8 coauthors. "Infrared Detection of Abundant CS in the Hot Core AFGL 2591 at High Spectral Resolution with SOFA/EXES" 2018, ApJL, 868, L2