Charlotte E Guthery, Ph.D.

Dr. Charlotte E. Guthery has worked as an Adaptive Optics Scientist at W. M. Keck Observatory since 2024. She has extensive hands-on experience developing, commissioning, and operationalizing adaptive optics systems. She recently led the commissioning of HAKA, a major replacement of the Keck II deformable mirror and wavefront sensor. She works continuously to update and improve adaptive optics user software in support of overall Keck Observatory operations. Her research focuses on developing high contrast imaging techniques and improving on-sky observations of exoplanets, brown dwarfs, and protoplanetary discs.

Charlotte collaborates with research groups at NASA (Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Goddard Space Flight Center), the University of California (Santa Cruz, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Diego, and Berkeley), California Institute of Technology, University of Arizona, University of Hawaii (Manoa), and the Subaru Telescope. She has mentored multiple undergraduate and graduate students, as well as visiting postdoctoral fellows in developing new wavefront sensing and high contrast techniques. Charlotte is also a point of contact for Habitable Worlds Observatory collaboration with the Keck Observatory.

Committee Appointments

Adaptive Optics Working Group, W. M. Keck Observatory, 2024-present

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Committee, W. M. Keck Observatory, 2022-2024

Akamai Selection Committee, University of California - Santa Cruz, 2024

Science Organizing Committee, AO4ELT7, 2022

Women in Optics, University of Arizona, 2019-2022

Funding and Awards

2024, NASA Astrophysics Research and Analysis (APRA) - $1.43M

2024, NSF Advanced Technologies and Instrumentation (ATI) - $388k

2022, Heising Simons Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship - $240k

2020, NASA Strategic University Research Program (SURP) - $100k

2017, SPIE Graduate Student Endowed Scholarship in Optical Sciences - $20k