Knicole D. Colón
Ph.D. Candidate
Dept. of Astronomy

University of Florida


Contact Information
Department of Astronomy
University of Florida

211 Bryant Space Science Center
PO Box 112055 Gainesville, FL 32611-2055

Office: 309
Phone: (352) 294-1852

Email: knicole(at)astro.ufl.edu



Education
Ph.D. Astronomy, University of Florida, expected completion 2012
M.S. Astronomy, University of Florida, 2009
B.S. Physics, The College of New Jersey, 2007


Awards
Young Explorers Grant from the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration, 2010-2011
Lewis and Clark Fund for Exploration and Field Research in Astrobiology, 2010-2011
NSF Graduate Research Fellow, 2009-2012
UF Alumni Fellow, 2007-2009
Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowship Honorable Mention, 2007-2008


Research Interests
Detection and Characterization of Extrasolar Planets (Exoplanets)
Transiting Exoplanets
Exoplanet Atmospheres
Narrow-Band Photometry


Research Experience
2007 – Present: University of Florida (advisor: Eric B. Ford)
2006: The College of New Jersey (advisor: Raymond J. Pfeiffer)
2006: NSF REU at Arecibo Observatory (advisor: Mayra Lebron)
2005: NSF REU at Lehigh University (advisor: Michael Stavola)


Observing Facilities Used
10.4-meter Gran Telescopio Canarias (Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos), May/Jun/Aug/Nov 2009, Jan/Mar/Apr/May/Jun/Jul/Aug/Sep/Oct/Nov 2010, Feb/Apr/Jun 2011
(note: all observations were completed in queue observing mode except those in Jun 2011, which were completed in classical visitor mode)
6.5-meter Magellan (Baade) Telescope (Las Campanas Observatory), Feb 2010
30-inch University of Florida Telescope (Rosemary Hill Observatory), Jun/Sep 2009, Jan 2010


Refereed Publications
''Probing Potassium in the Atmosphere of HD 80606b with Tunable Filter Transit Spectrophotometry from the Gran Telescopio Canarias''
Colón, Ford, Redfield, Fortney, Shabram, Deeg & Mahadevan, submitted to MNRAS (2010)
(Link to paper)

''Ground-Based Multisite Observations of Two Transits of HD 80606b''
Shporer, Winn, Dreizler, Colón & 40 coauthors, ApJ, 722, 880 (2010)
(Link to paper)

''Characterizing Transiting Extrasolar Planets with Narrow-Band Photometry and GTC/OSIRIS''
Colón, Ford, Lee, Mahadevan & Blake, MNRAS, 408, 1494 (2010)
(Link to paper)

''The Transit Ingress and the Tilted Orbit of the Extraordinarily Eccentric Exoplanet HD 80606b''
Winn, Howard, Johnson, Marcy, Gazak, Starkey, Ford, Colón & 13 coauthors, ApJ, 703, 2091 (2009)
(Link to paper)

''Benefits of Ground-Based Photometric Follow-Up for Transiting Extrasolar Planets Discovered with Kepler and CoRoT''
Colón
& Ford, ApJ, 703, 1086 (2009)
(Link to paper)


Posters
ExoClimes 2010: Exploring the Diversity of Planetary Atmospheres, September 2010
UCF Winter Workshop 2010: Exoplanets for Planetary Scientists, January 2010
ESO-CAUP Workshop on: Towards Other Earths, perspectives and limitations in the ELT era, October 2009
STScI Symposium: The Search for Life in the Universe, May 2009

209th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society, January 2007


In the News
On observations of the transit of HD 80606b made with the 30-inch UF telescope at Rosemary Hill Observatory:
http://news.ufl.edu/2009/09/28/fla-telescope/
http://www.gainesville.com/article/20090929/articles/909291012?Title=Tiny-telescope-big-observations


On the implementation of a new technique to study transiting extrasolar planets with the 10.4-meter Gran Telescopio Canarias:
http://news.ufl.edu/2010/06/24/gtc-planet/
http://www.iac.es/divulgacion.php?op1=16&id=636&lang=en


On observations of the atmosphere of HD 80606b made with the 10.4-meter Gran Telescopio Canarias:
http://news.ufl.edu/2010/08/31/potassium-planet/

http://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/research/title,97575,en.html








Last updated: July 11, 2011
Created by: Knicole D. Colón