MEET THE TEAM

Fred Ciesla works at the intersection of astrophysics and cosmochemistry, developing models that link the record of planet formation in our Solar System to the processes that shape protoplanetary disks around other stars and the exoplanets that form.   In particular, his research focuses on understanding the feedback between physical processes and chemical evolution that occurs during star formation, protoplanetary disk evolution, and planetary accretion.  Fred received his BA in Physics from Cornell University and PhD in Planetary Sciences from the University of Arizona.  He joined the faculty of the University of Chicago in 2008.

Fred Ciesla’s Web Page

Kaitlin Kratter’s research focuses on the formation and evolution of stellar and planetary systems. Kratter employs analytic and computational techniques to tackle topics including accretion disk dynamics, binary formation, few body dynamics, and planet-disk interactions. Her current work is focused on the intersection of binary and planet formation, especially in circumbinary systems. She is also collaborating closely with observers to discover extreme mass ratio binaries, and very young multiple star systems.

Kaitlin Kratter’s Web Page

Ilaria Pascucci’s main research focuses on understanding when and how planets form and evolve and how common are life-bearing planetary systems like our own Solar System. She carries out observations with state-of-the-art facilities to characterize planet-forming disks around young stars. She also uses exoplanet surveys to re-construct the intrinsic frequency of planets in time. Ilaria received her PhD in astrophysics at the University of Heidelberg in Germany and joined the faculty of the University of Arizona in 2011.

Ilaria Pascucci’s Web Page

Kevin Wagner is a NASA Sagan Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory. Dr. Wagner’s research focuses on directly detecting and studying planets around nearby stars, with a specific focus on finding and characterizing potentially life supporting planets. His team’s recent work has enabled imaging planets that are approximately Neptune-sized in the habitable zone of the closest Sun-like star, Alpha Centauri, which shows that imaging smaller, potentially Earth-like planets is closely within reach.

Kevin Wagner’s Web Page

Jessica Barnes’ main research focus is on understanding the origin and evolution of volatiles in the inner Solar System. She utilizes a combination of electron microscopy and high-resolution secondary ion mass spectrometry techniques to study the mineralogy, geochemistry, and petrological histories of a wide range of extraterrestrial materials.

Jessica Barnes’ Web Page

Tommi Koskinen’s research focuses on the structure and evolution of planet and satellite atmospheres in the solar system and extrasolar planetary systems.  He is particularly interested in the physics and chemistry of the middle and upper atmosphere that he studies through both the analysis of observations and theoretical modeling.  His research covers a wide range of different objects and techniques in the spirit of comparative planetology, which is critical to our understanding of the evolution of planetary atmospheres and environments in general.  Dr. Koskinen served as a participating scientist on the Cassini mission and he is still actively involved in research on the atmospheres of Saturn and Titan.  In addition, he develops and maintains models of exoplanet atmospheres that are required to interpret current and planned observations as well as to simulate mass loss and address questions on long-term evolution.

Tommi Koskinen’s Web Page

Min’s researches focus on  characterizing the properties of young stars and understanding their circumstellar disk evolution. Min Fang received his PhD in astrophysics at the University of Heidelberg in Germany in 2011 and joined  Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2021.

Sebastiaan’s research focusses mainly on the early stages of planet formation, during which microscopic dust particles come together to form kilometer-size planetesimals – the building blocks of planets. He develops numerical models to simulate dust and volatile evolution in protoplanetary disks, and is particularly interested in understanding how the composition of planetary-size bodies is related to their formation history. Sebastiaan received his PhD from Leiden University in 2015, was a NASA Hubble Fellow at the University of Chicago and University of Arizona, and joined the University of Exeter in 2020.

Sebastiaan Krijt’s Web Page

Christoph Mordasini studied physics at the University of Bern, Switzerland. He then worked for six years at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg. Since 2015, he leads the PlanetsInTime research group at the Physics Institute of the University of Bern.

Christoph Mordassini’s Web Page 

Ritvik Basant is a Junior majoring in Physics and Astronomy, with a minor in Mathmatics. His research focuses on characterizing habitable exoplanets using statistical assessment based on planetary bond albedo and orbital period priors.

Ryan Boyden’s research involves characterizing the properties of circumstellar disks that reside in stellar clusters, the most common sites of star formation. He uses radio astronomical interferometers, such as ALMA and the VLA, to observe disks in nearby clusters and constrain their underlying physical and chemical structure. Example clusters include the Orion Nebula Cluster, which hosts the massive Trapezium stars, and the NGC 1977 cluster.

Chloe Fisher obtained her master’s degree in natural sciences from the University of Cambridge, before starting her PhD at the University of Bern in 2017. She works primarily on atmospheric retrieval of exoplanets, using traditional techniques and machine learning.

Chloe Fisher’s Web Page

Adrien is a PhD student at the University of Exeter working with Sebastiaan Krijt on planetesimal formation. He uses numerical methods to simulate the growth of dust to pebbles through coagulation. More precisely, he considers various particle properties (e.g. porosity, composition) to better understand how it influences the formation of planetary building blocks.

Megan Mansfield received her PhD from the University of Chicago. Her research broadly focuses on the spectroscopic characterization of transiting exoplanet atmospheres. She uses a wide variety of ground-based and space-based observations to better understand planetary formation, physics, and chemistry.

Martin Schlecker’s research focuses on exoplanets and their formation, and he has a special interestin exoplanet demographics and planets around cool stars. His tools of choice are planet population synthesis models and statistical analyses of planet populations. He is also involved in programs that search for new exoplanets with the transit and radial velocity techniques. Martin received his PhD from the University of Heidelberg and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in 2021 for his work on the architectures of multi-planet systems. In 2022, he joined Prof. Daniel Apai’s group at the University of Arizona.

Martin Schlecker’s Web Page

Chaucer Langbert is a graduate student at LPL working with Daniel Apai to study planetary atmospheres. They are currently interested in the role that atmospheric feedback mechanisms play in global, long-term climate stability with special applications to astrobiology.

Dominika Itrich investigates young, low-mass stars using infrared and optical spectroscopy. In particular, she is interested in how environmental conditions, like irradiation field or metallicity, impact early evolution of stars and their protoplanetary disks. Dominika received her PhD in 2023 from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and the European Southern Observatory. In 2024, she joined the Alien Earths team at the University of Arizona.

Josh Eisner joined the faculty of the University of Arizona in 2008, and he is a currently a Professor of Astronomy.  He studies planet formation at a range of wavelengths, from the radio/mm regime where protoplanetary disk dust and gas can be observed, to the infrared and optical, where emission from protoplanets themselves can be targeted.  His observations, which use the largest telescopes in the world, constrain the initial conditions and physical processes involved in planet formation, and help further our understanding of the origins of both solar and extra-solar planets.

Josh Eisner’s Web Page

Renu Malhotra’s research spans orbital dynamics in the solar system and in exo-solar planetary systems. Current topics of research are: theory of orbital resonances, long term stability and chaos in the asteroid belt and in the Kuiper belt, the orbital migration history of the giant planets, and the dynamics of exo-solar planetary systems.

Dr. Malhotra’s research interests include: Astrobiology, Exoplanets; Planetary Formation and Evolution, Orbital Dynamics, Small Bodies and Theoretical Astrophysics.

Renu Malhotra’s Web Page

Ben works on the detection and characterization of transiting exoplanets. He is interested primarily in small exoplanets around nearby small stars that afford the best opportunities for detailed atmospheric characterization, including searches for biosignatures with near-future telescopes. Starspots can mimic or mask atmospheric features in transmission spectra, and so Ben also studies new approaches for constraining stellar photospheric heterogeneity and disentangling stellar and planetary signals in transmission spectra.

Ben Rackham’s Web Page

Tom Zega applies a microscopy- and microanalysis-based approach to study the chemical and physical evolution of the early solar system and ancient stars. His efforts are focused on the origin of the circumstellar grains that formed in ancient stars, refractory inclusions that formed the first solar-system solids, primitive organic compounds, and development of analytical techniques for investigations of such materials. He uses ultrahigh-resolution ion- and electron-microscopy techniques, including focused-ion-beam scanning-electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy, to determine the composition and structure of these materials at scales ranging from millimeters down to the atomic. Knowledge of these details of planetary materials provides novel insights into the origin of our solar system and ancient stars.

Tom Zega’s Web Page

Laird specializes in novel astronomical observations utilizing new adaptive optics instrumentation. He is utilizing adaptive optics (which removes the blurring effects of the Earth’s atmosphere) to study at very high resolution: low-mass stars, brown dwarfs, and extrasolar planets. As well he is interested in massive old AGB stars, young stars in the process of forming, & solar system objects like Titan and binary asteroids. He has been involved in the development of several adaptive optics systems and special high-contrast high resolution infrared cameras. He is the head scientist (PI) of the Magellan Adaptive Secondary AO system in Chile.

Laird Close’s Web Page

Pierre’s research interests focus on the building blocks and early history of the Solar System history, and the origin of life through the coordinated study of circumstellar and interstellar dust grains and organic molecules in unequiliberated planetary materials (e.g., meteorites, micrometeorites and interplanetary dust particles). His background is in Geochemistry and Cosmochemistry, from terrestrial samples (e.g., Pb and Zn isotopes in Archean komatiitic lava flows) to primitive extraterrestrial samples (e.g., meteorites and micrometeorites), using multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and a variety of in situ ion- and electron-microscopy techniques (e.g., secondary ion mass spectrometry, Auger and Raman spectroscopy, focused-ion-beam scanning-electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy).

Pierre Haenecour’s Web Page

Jared Males studies exoplanets and develops techniques to characterize them with direct imaging from both the ground and with space telescopes. Dr. Males is the principal investigator of the NSF-funded MagAO-X project, which is developing a new “extreme” AO system for the Magellan Clay telescope. MagAO-X will deliver extremely high quality, high resolution images and spectra, and allow astronomers to image exoplanets closer to their bright host stars than ever before.

Jared Males Web Page

Kevin Heng obtained his Ph.D in astrophysics (2007) from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He had postdoctoral stints at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (including as Frank & Peggy Taplin Member) and ETH Zurich (as a Zwicky Prize Fellow), before moving to the University of Bern. His primary research interests are in the theory, simulation and phenomenology of the atmospheres of exoplanets, focusing on methodology associated with radiative transfer, atmospheric dynamics, chemistry, aerosols and Bayesian inference. He is the author of “Exoplanetary Atmospheres: Theoretical Concepts & Foundations” published by Princeton University Press (2017).

Photo: Alessandro Della Bella

Kevin Heng’s Web Page

Stephane Mazevet is an expert in large scale simulations of the physical properties at extreme density and temperature conditions. He applied this method to planetary and exoplanetary modelling. Since 2015, he leads the Origines and conditions for the emergence of life project at the university PSL.

Stephane Mazevet’s Web Page

An astronomer and staff member of the National Observatory since 1998, my research interests include star and planet formation, exoplanets, low mass stars and brown dwarfs, the Milky Way, infrared spectroscopy, massively multiplexed wide-field spectroscopy, the nature of discovery in astronomy, and its science sociology and resource allocation practices. I am actively engaged in communicating science to the public and in exploring the future of science publications and the role of science in society.

 Joan Najita’s Web Page

Jenny Bergner studies chemistry along the star and planet formation sequence, with a focus on understanding how volatile/organic material is delivered to nascent planetary systems. Her research combines millimeter telescope observations, ice chemistry experiments, and disk chemistry simulations. She received her PhD from Harvard University and is currently a NASA Sagan Fellow at the University of Chicago

Jenny Bergner’s Web Page

Jamie Dietrich is a postdoc at Arizona State University studying statistical analyses of exoplanet systems, searching for “hidden” planets in multiplanet systems in the solar neighborhood. By utilizing the full statistical knowledge gathered from large surveys, predictions can be made for the parameters of an additional planet in these systems, thus prioritizing them for EPRV characterization and potential HWO direct imaging

Kaustubh Hakim’s research focuses on terrestrial exoplanets, in particular on geochemical cycles, interior-atmosphere interactions, and interior mineralogy, structure and evolution. To simulate planetary conditions, he implements computational models and laboratory experiments. He obtained his PhD in astrophysics and geochemistry from the University of Amsterdam.

Kaustubh Hakim’s Web Page

Mruthyunjay is a PhD student in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona working with Regis Ferriere. He has a Bachelors degree in genetic engineering from India and masters in Ecology and evolution from France. He works at the interface of biology and mathematics by developing mathematical models and carrying out some wet lab experiments. His aim is to understand the different limits of life and is interested in finding patterns and adaptive trends in biomolecules that can be used as biosignatures. He is currently working with extremophiles and trying to estimate the upper thermal limit of life.

Mruthyunjay Kubendran Sumathi’s Web Page

Marit Mol Lous will soon be starting her second year as a PhD student at the University of Bern and University of Zurich. Her aim is to look for long-term habitable conditions on planets with a primordial atmosphere. To do this she combines models of formation, atmosphere evolution and core composition among others.

Allison joined Steward in 2023 as a Postdoctoral Scholar with NASA’s Alien Earths project. She received her Ph.D. in 2020 from the University of Virginia, where she was a Grote Reber Doctoral Fellow. She worked with Dr. Crystal Brogan of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory on radio-interferometric and multiwavelength observations of massive star-forming regions in the Milky Way. Her thesis focused on studying the full protostellar populations in massive protoclusters, with the goal of determining precisely how massive stars get their mass. She worked with Dr. Adam Ginsburg for her first postdoc at the University of Florida, where she was also an ALMA Ambassador in 2022. At Steward, she works with Dr. Josh Eisner on dynamical masses and evolutionary tracks of pre-main sequence (PMS) stars, UV-irradiated protoplanetary disks, and the connection between the evolution of individual disks and the overall protocluster environment.

Allison Towner’s Web Page