Wayne Ngan

Wayne is a 4th-year graduate student who received his undergraduate degree in Physics and Astronomy from the University of British Columbia. His research interests include numerical simulation of cold dark matter, and instrumentation in the Canadian High Arctic.

For the latter, he worked with former Dunlap Fellow Nicholas Law and Prof. Ray Carlberg of the DAA. He travelled to northern Ellesmere Island, at 80°N latitude, in the winters of 2012 and 2013 to deploy two Arctic Wide-field Cameras (AWCams). The cameras are designed to discover exoplanets by detecting transits of bright stars. Continuous winter darkness at the northerly site is ideal for detecting exoplanets with periods measured in weeks or months; planets with such orbital periods are more likely to be orbiting within a star’s habitable zone. The data collected in 2013 is expected to result in the identification of transiting exoplanets.

We wish to acknowledge this land on which the University of Toronto operates. For thousands of years it has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit River. Today, this meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land. For more information.