René Doyon

René Doyon’s research at the Université de Montréal’s Department of Physics focuses on the development of cutting-edge astronomical instrumentation for various observatories, both on the ground and in space. He is also actively involved in a number of observing programs targeting the search for and characterization of brown dwarfs, exoplanets and young low-mass stars. On the instrumental side, he manages various infrared instrumentation projects (camera and spectrograph) for the Mont-Mégantic Observatory. He is involved in the development of the Gemini Planet Imager, which began operating in 2013.

He is the co-Principal Investigator on SPIRou, a high-resolution infrared spectrograph installed on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope since 2018. SPIRou is designed to detect telluric (Earth-like) planets in the “habitable” zone around low-mass stars in the solar neighborhood. He is also Principal Investigator of NIRISS, one of the four science instruments of the James Webb Space Telescope.

Mr. Doyon is Director of the OMM and of the Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets.