Dr. Matthew Kenworthy

Dr. Matthew Kenworthy

Matthew Kenworthy grew up near London and obtained his PhD in Astronomical Instrumentation at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge University in 1998. He worked on adaptive optics and the direct imaging of exoplanets at Steward Observatory in Tucson, Arizona, before moving to Leiden in 2010. He is working at TU Delft since 2020.

In keywords: exoplanets, coronagraphs, astronomical instrumentation, circumplanetary disks, giant exoring systems.

Research: My research bridges between instrumentation for astronomical telescopes, from working on the world’s first adaptive optics system using a deformable secondary mirror, through developing the Apodizing Phase Plate coronagraph, and using these coronagraphs to take images of extrasolar planets around nearby stars. More recently he is interested in seeing the transits of circumplanetary disks and giant ring systems, which give an insight into the formation and evolution of exomoons.

For possible thesis topics, please have a look at the Brightspace page of the MSc AE profile Space Exploration.