Kélian Sommer joined Steward Observatory in 2025 as a postdoctoral research associate in Erika Hamden’s group. His work focuses on the development, optimization, and testing of next-generation photon-counting UV optimized Skipper CCD detectors. During his PhD at Université de Montpellier, France, Kélian specialized in high-precision photometry and the characterization of instrumental and atmospheric transmissions, contributing to experiments such as StarDICE within the Dark Energy Science Collaboration of the Legacy Survey of Space and Time of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory and the Zwicky Transient Facility. He is broadly interested in advancing instrumentation to improve photometric calibration of ground-based telescopes, development of new UV-VIS-NIR detectors, type Ia supernovae cosmology and studies of the circumgalactic medium. Beyond astronomy, Kélian enjoys running marathons and trail races, road cycling, hiking, and practicing amateur astrophotography.

Areas of Interest: Astronomical instrumentation, photometric calibration, detector development, dark energy, circumgalactic medium