Dr. Bender uses near-infrared and visible light, high-resolution, high-contrast spectroscopy to directly measure the orbital dynamics and characterize the atmospheric structure of faint binary companions, including giant exoplanets, brown dwarfs, and low-mass stars. He has extensive experience designing and writing algorithms and software for the precision analysis of ground-based spectroscopic data, and has pioneered new techniques for precisely correcting the effects of the Earth's atmosphere on astronomical spectral.