I work as an astrophysicist in the Physics and Astronomy Department concentrating on extragalactic astrophyics, adaptive optics (AO) and infrared instrumentation. My students and I have often developed cutting edge systems to make first-of-their-kind observations.We were the first to observe cosmologically distant field galaxies with a Shack-Hartmann AO system in order to directly observe galaxy evolution (proposed in 1999: Larkin and Glassman 1999 , and first results: Larkin et al. 2000 ) and the first to apply speckle suppression techniques to look for planets around other stars (GQ Lup b in 2006: McElwain et al. 2007 ). And the instruments we've built in the lab have allowed other scientists to make an impressive set of "first" measurements like the first precipitation on another world (Methane rain on Titan: Adamkovics et al. 2007 ), and the first spectrum of a directly imaged exoplanet (HR8799b: Bowler et al. 2010 ).
We've recently completed the spectrograph for the Gemini Planet Imager and participated in the first light commissioning activities. The science campaign to discover Jovian planets around young stars begins in mid-2014.