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Prof Sasha Hinkley

Associate Professor

Email:

Telephone: 01392 725522

Extension: (Streatham) 5522

Overview:

I'm an experimental astrophysicist interested in high contrast imaging and spectroscopy of exoplanetary systems.  Specifically, for my PhD at Columbia University, and while a Sagan and an NSF Fellow at the California Institute of Technology, I led the development of an infrared imaging spectrometer for Palomar Observatory dedicated for this task.  Since my arrival at Exeter, I have become an active user of ESO facilities, while continuing to mine through my large direct imaging survey for planets I carried out at the W. M. Keck Observatory while at Caltech.  I am also the Principal Investigator for an approved 54-hour Early Release Science Program with the James Webb Space Telescope, working with Andy Skemer (UCSC) and Beth Biller (Edinburgh) as well as numerous other astronomers across the world.

 

 

Students: 

  1. My first PhD student Elisabeth Matthews, now a postdoc at MIT, led our survey for planets around young stars with evidence for multiple belts of circumstellar debris using SPHERE at the VLT.  Elisabeth's work uncovered a spectacular image of a nearly edge-on disk around the star HD 129590 (see paper below). 
  2. My current PhD student Aarynn Carter, jointly advised by David Sing, works on both Transit Transmission Spectroscopy using HST, as well as High Contrast imaging with JWST. 
 

 

Some Selected Publications: 

  1. Hinkley et al. 2015. "Discovery of Seven Companions to Intermediate-Mass Stars with Extreme Mass Ratios in the Scorpius-Centaurus Association" https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015ApJ...806L...9H/abstract
  2. Hinkley et al. 2015. "Early Results from VLT SPHERE: Long-slit Spectroscopy of 2MASS0122-2439B, a Young Companion Near the Deuterium Burning Limit." https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015ApJ...805L..10H/abstract
  3. Matthews et al. 2017. "The First Scattered-light Image of the Debris Disk around the Sco-Cen Target HD129590." https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017ApJ...843L..12M/abstract
  4. Hinkley et al., 2011. "A New High Contrast Imaging Program at Palomar Observatory." https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011PASP..123...74H/abstract