Harnessing the Eclipse: Transiting Planets and KELT

The next stage of planet exploration has been propelled by the recent discovery of a number of transiting planets. I will discuss the current state of exoplanet discovery, describing various planet detection methods, focusing on transit surveys and the scientific value of transiting planets. I will summarize the benefits and challenges of searching for planets with transits, and describe the KELT project, a small telescope for planet detection. We have conducted several transit searches with KELT, and I will present recent results on variable stars and transit candidates from our survey. I will also talk about future instruments in the KELT program.

Born and raised in Cleveland, OH. Undergrad at Princeton where I worked with David Spergel and Bodhan Paczynski on Gamma-Ray-Bursts, and with Michael Strauss on detecting AGNs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Graduated in 2000 and worked as a consultant in NYC before going to the OSU Astronomy PhD program in 2001. Worked on observations of the Galactic Center before doing theoretical work on planetary transits with Andy Gould and Scott Gaudi. Built the KELT telescope for transit surveys for PhD dissertation. Graduated in 2007 and joined Vanderbilt as a postdoc with the Vanderbilt Initiative in Data-Intensive Astrophysics (VIDA) program.

Dr. Joshua Pepper

Vanderbilt University