Dr David Pinfield
PhD
Job title: Academic Fellow
Memberships and Appointments: Member of the Time Allocation Committee for the UK Infrared Telescope, 2000-2004
I am currently an RCUK Academic Fellow (leading to a lectureship) here in Hertfordshire. Previously I was a PPARC Fellow at Liverpool John Moores University, and a Leverhulme Fellow at The Queen's University of Belfast. I did my PhD in The University of Leicester, and my BSc at The University of Birmingham.
Some recent highlights include: I am principal investigator of the WFCAM Transit Survey - a UKIRT Campaign Proposal recently awarded 200 nights of observations to discover transiting planets around cool stars. I am a leader in a project using UKIDSS to search for record breaking low-temperature dwarfs, and we have recently identified what we believe to be the coolest brown dwarf ever found, with an estimate temperature of about 600K.
Research Interests
Brown dwarfs and exoplanetsCollaborations and Projects
Searching for transiting rocky planets with the WFCAM Transit Survey: I am leading the WFCAM Transit Survey - a new Campaign Survey recently awarded 200 nights of observation on the 4m UK Infrared Telescope. This survey will search for transiting planets around cool stars.
Searching for the coolest brown dwarfs with the UKIDSS Large Area Survey. I am a leader in a large collaboration searching for record breaking low-temperature brown dwarfs in the world leading UK Infrared Deep Sky Survey.
Hunting for benchmark brown dwarfs: I work with several PhD students on projects that aim to identify benchmark brown dwarfs (with well constrained properties).Such systems will help us understand the physics of cool atmospheres, and help provide a much better understanding of star and brown dwarf formation.