email: dlk@space.mit.edu
phone: 617-253-7294
fax: 617-253-0861

Kavli Institute for
Astrophysics and Space Research
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Room 37-664H
Cambridge, MA 02139


 
  • Currently (2007) a Hubble Postdoctoral Fellow at the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
  • Until this fall, I was a Pappalardo Fellow in astrophysics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  • Working with Deepto Chakrabarty's group.
  • I also work with Marten van Kerkwijk of the University of Toronto
  • Until 2004, I was a graduate student in astrophysics at the California Institute of Technology:
    • Here's my thesis, or you can buy it
    • I worked with Shri Kulkarni's group.
    • Thesis projects:
      • A search for compact central objects in shell supernova remnants (SNRs). This involves:
        • Constructing a sample of SNRs within 5 kpc.
        • X-ray observations of these SNRs to search for point sources.
        • Optical/IR followup to determine which point sources are contaminants (foreground/background objects).
        • See recent talks on this project.
      • An investigation of the multi-wavelength properties of nearby, isolated, thermally emitting neutron stars (INSs, also called RQNS, DTNS, etc.). This involves:
        • Deep searches for radio emission.
        • Multi-band optical/UV photometry (with HST) to determine spectral energy distributions.
        • High-precision astrometry with HST to determine parallaxes.
        • Deep searches for Halpha emission.
        • X-ray timing.
        • X-ray spectroscopy to look for lines.
        • See recent talks on this project.
      • As parts of my thesis, I also worked on:
        • A GBT Spectrometer Spigot Card for Pulsar Observations. This is the facility search instrument at the GBT (and has some timing capabilities too).
        • Techniques for high-precision optical astrometry with HST to determine parallaxes of faint (V>26) objects (i.e. neutron stars). This is in collaboration with Jay Anderson (now at Rice).
  • I am mostly observationally / instrumentally based. When given the chance, I have observed with
  • Check out my papers.
  • Check out my talks.
  • CV: postscript, pdf