Faculty and Staff

Darren DePoy

Darren DePoy (depoy@tamu.edu) is the Rachal/Mitchell/Heep endowed professor of Physics and Astronomy and is the head of the Astronomical Instrumentation Lab. He came to Texas A&M in 2008 after working at The Ohio State University for 18 years, where he was a Professor and the Vice-Chair for Instrumentation. Dr. DePoy has designed and built state-of-the-art optical and infrared astronomical instruments for telescopes all over the world, including some of the first digital imaging systems in astronomy, near-infrared spectrometers and cameras, multi-wavelength cameras, innovative optical spectrographs, and a wide-field CCD imager. These instruments have been used for a wide variety of science projects: from detecting exoplanets to measuring the fundamental parameters of the Universe. 

Jennifer Marshall

Jennifer Marshall (marshall@tamu.edu) is an associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M University and holder of the Arseven/Mitchell Chair in Astronomical Statistics. Her scientific interests include the study of near-field cosmology and studying the detailed kinematics and chemistry of satellite galaxies of the Milky Way, particularly those that have been discovered by the Dark Energy Survey. As an astronomical instrument builder, Dr. Marshall has led Texas A&M’s involvement in the Dark Energy Survey's calibration systems and also in the HETDEX project, building the VIRUS spectrographs. She also worked to develop a conceptual design for the GMACS spectrograph that will be a first-light instrument for the Giant Magellan Telescope.

Luke Schmidt

Luke Schmidt is an Observatory Project Scientist at Yerkes Observatory. Dr. Schmidt was an Associate Research Scientist at the TAMU Astronomical Instrumentation Lab from 2015 to 2024, and he managed the day-to-day activities of the lab and filled various roles in the lab instrumentation projects including management, optical and opto-mechanical design, detectors, and control systems. Dr. Schmidt has been involved with the development of a variety of optical and infrared astronomical instruments operating between 0.320 and 2.4 microns including imagers, spectrographs, interferometers, and calibration systems. Before coming to Texas A&M, he was an Instrumentation Scientist with the Magdalena Ridge Observatory Interferometer project and a Postdoc working on NESSI, an IR spectrometer (JHK bands).

Ryan Oelkers

Ryan Oelkers is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley and is a member of the South Texas Space Science Institute. Dr. Oelkers has considerable experience in astronomical survey management through his time as the targeting and cadence coordinator for the Milky Way Mapper and as the northern targeting selection coordinator of APOGEE-2. He is currently the director for the Undergraduate Summer Program at the LSST Rubin Community Workshop. He also spent two years working in industry as a data scientist with the Qualis Corporation and the Sysco Corporation.

Erika Cook

Erika Cook (ecook@tamu.edu) is the Lab Manager of the Astronomical Instrumentation Lab. Her background is in electrical engineering and programming. She manages the day-to-day operations of the lab, assists students with their projects, and designs control software for instruments.