- Associate Dean for Infrastructure
- Professor of Physics & Astronomy
- Rachal/Mitchell/Heep Professorship in Physics
- Office: Academic Building, 4th Floor
Administrative Contact
Biography
Dr. Darren L. DePoy is a professor of physics and astronomy and holder of the Rachal-Mitchell-Heep Endowed Professorship in Physics. He serves as Associate Dean for Research Infrastructure in the College of Arts and Sciences, a position he previously held in the College of Science. DePoy holds respective B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics and astronomy. He joined the Texas A&M faculty in 2008 as a member of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, where his research focuses on the study of active galactic nuclei fueled by enormous black holes and the discovery of exoplanets. DePoy is deputy director of the George P. and Cynthia Woods Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy and director of the Munnerlyn Astronomical Instrumentation Laboratory. An international leader in the development of astronomical instrumentation for ground-based telescopes, he spent 18 years building the astronomy program at The Ohio State University prior to coming to Texas A&M, which he has helped position as a leader in astronomical instrumentation and measurement systems. During his career, DePoy has designed and built state-of-the-art optical and infrared astronomical instruments for telescopes all over the world that have been used for a wide variety of science projects, from detecting exoplanets to measuring the fundamental parameters of the universe.
Research Interests
- Astronomical Instrumentation
Selected Publications
- Karl Gebhardt, et al. “The Hobby--Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) Survey Design, Reductions, and Detections.” The Astrophysical Journal, 923(2), 217, Dec 2021.
- Gary J. Hill, et al. “The HETDEX Instrumentation: Hobby--Eberly Telescope Wide-field Upgrade and VIRUS.” The Astronomical Journal, 162(6), 298, Dec 2021.
- Luke M. Schmidt, Lauren N. Aldoroty, Yasin Alam, Leonardo Bush, Darren L. DePoy, Matthew Holden, Doyeon Kim, Jennifer L. Marshall, and Mason Perkey. “Characterization of the reflectivity of various black and white materials.” In Roland Geyl and Ramón Navarro, editors, Advances in Optical and Mechanical Technologies for Telescopes and Instrumentation IV. SPIE, Dec 2020.
- Samuel C. Barden, Darren L. Depoy, Nicolas Flagey, Alexis Hill, Jennifer L. Marshall, Andreea O. Petric, Luke M. Schmidt, and Kei Szeto. “Science calibration for highly multiplexed fiber-fed optical spectroscopy: update from Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer.” In Chris R. Benn, Robert L. Seaman, and David S. Adler, editors, Observatory Operations: Strategies, Processes, and Systems VIII. SPIE, Dec 2020.
- Mary Anne Limbach, Luke M. Schmidt, Darren L. DePoy, Jeffrey C. Mason, Mike Scobey, Pat Brown, Chelsea Taylor, and Jennifer L. Marshall. “The Exoplanet Transmission Spectroscopy Imager (ETSI).” In Christopher J. Evans, Julia J. Bryant, and Kentaro Motohara, editors, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy VIII. SPIE, Dec 2020.