Here you can find more information about the main projects that I am currently working on by clicking on the links at the top of this page. My current work involves a number of large wide-field imaging projects, focusing on lensing by large-scale structure and galaxies or on clusters of galaxies. A number of minor projects are listed at the bottom.

Main Projects

EUCLID: The ultimate weak lensing survey requires space based imaging data over a wide range of wavelengths to allow for accurate photometric redshift determinations for the sources. Euclid will provide excellent images and infrared colors, whereas optical colors will be determined using ground based telescopes.

South Pole Telescope: This is a project to discover a large sample of massive high redshift clusters through the Sunyaev-Zeldovitch effect. As it name implies the telescope is located on the South Pole. My involvement is in the mass-calibration of a subset of the clusters, required to derive cosmological parameters.

Canadian cluster comparison project: This is a comprehensive multi-wavelength survey of 50 massive X-ray selected clusters of galaxies. The imaging data are used to derive weak lensing mass estimates, which are compared to the X-ray and optical properties.

multi-epoch nearby cluster survey: This is an ongoing survey of about 70 nearby (0.05<z<0.12) galaxy clusters with the CFHT to provide observational constraints on the stripping of dark matter halos in dense environments by measuring the weak lensing signal around cluster members. The date acquisition is done over a two year period to allow for the detection of type Ia supernovae. Finally we aim to also constrain the amount of intra-cluster light and compare the various results to obtain a complete picture of star and dark matter stripping.

Canada-france-hawaii telescope legacy survey: This is currently the largest multi-color cosmic shear survey. The total area is about 140 square degrees, which have been imaged in ugriz with CFHT. The survey will provide the best constraints on a number of cosmological parameters, including the dark energy equation of state, from weak lensing. It also serves as a pathfinder for much larger projects such as PanSTARRS, LSST or SNAP.

Red-sequence cluster survey: Another way to determine cosmological parameters is by counting the number density of clusters as a function of mass and redshift. The first and second generation RCS aim to do this by finding clusters using multi-color observations. These are the largest surveys of their kind and have resulted in a wide range of follow-up studies to better understand the objects that are discovered. In particular, the study of strong lensing by clusters is a major component of this work.

Smaller Projects

- Spitzer Adaptation of the Red-Sequence Cluster Survey (SpARCS)

- HST Snapshot study of low X-ray luminosity clusters from the 160 sq.deg. survey

- Algorithm to detect blends with eclipsing binaries in planet transit surveys