Rob Wittenmyer

Dr Rob Wittenmyer is a Lecturer in the School of Physics at UNSW. His research interests focus on the detection and characterisation of extrasolar planets. He is the leader of the Pan-Pacific Planet Search team, a collaboration between Australia, China, and the US, with the aim of detecting planets around massive, evolved stars. He is also a member of the Anglo-Australian Planet Search, which is led by Prof Chris Tinney.

Wittenmyer and the Exoplanetary Science group at UNSW are working in the following research areas:

- Radial-velocity detection of planets orbiting Sun-like stars (Anglo-Australian Planet Search);
- Radial-velocity detection of planets orbiting high-mass, evolved stars (Pan-Pacific Planet Search);
- Extensive simulation of large radial-velocity data sets to determine the true underlying frequency of planets, based on the detections and the non-detections;
- Detailed dynamical testing of multiple-planet systems (with Jonathan Horner); and
- A search for Earth-mass planets in the Alpha Centauri system (funded by ARC Discovery Grant DP110101007).

Dr Wittenmyer is also building collaborations with the Tokyo Institute of Technology (Okayama Planet Search), and Nanjing University.