Dániel Apai, PhD
Interim Associate Dean for Science
Professor, Astronomy and Planetary Sciences
Daniel’s research projects include exoplanet and brown dwarf atmospheres, astrobiology, planet formation, and the search for habitable exoplanets. He is using ground- and space-based telescopes to study planet formation, search for new worlds, and characterize them. His work also includes connecting the stages of planet formation in the Solar System to those observed in protoplanetary disks around other stars.
Daniel is leading the Extrasolar Storms, the Alien Earths, and the Cloud Atlas, Project EDEN, Project Nautilus programs.
Kevin Hardegree-Ullman, PhD
Alien Earths Postdoctoral Researcher
Kevin received his PhD from the University of Toledo in 2018 for his work in constraining planet occurrence rates for mid-type M dwarfs in the Kepler field. His research in exoplanet demographics continued at Caltech/IPAC-NExScI through 2021, where he identified the planet radius valley in K2 data, confirming that the key result from the Kepler mission holds up throughout different regions of the galaxy. In addition to exoplanet demographics, Kevin’s research includes stellar characterization, ground and space-based follow-up of transiting exoplanets, and brown dwarf photometric variability. He is currently working on Project EDEN and Bioverse to help study the nearby exoplanet population.
Visit Kevin’s website at: https://kevinkhu.com
Jeremy Dietrich
UArizona Astronomy Graduate Student
Project EDEN and Alien Earths
Jeremy is a 5th year PhD student working on exoplanet populations and statistical analyses. Specifically, he is examining multi-planet systems and searching for “hidden” planets, by using population statistics to determine the most likely systems to contain an additional planet that is currently undiscovered. Jeremy is also working on the Project EDEN survey of nearby M dwarfs for transiting planets, leading the target selection and data analysis.
Jeremy Dietrich
Rachael Amaro
NSF Graduate Research Fellow
UArizona Astronomy Graduate Student
Rachael is a 4th year graduate student studying the atmospheres of brown dwarfs in tight white dwarf-brown dwarf binaries. These highly irradiated ultracool atmospheres enable us to test the presence of predicted condensate cloud formation, study day-night heat redistribution in great detail, and build an observational link between field brown dwarf and hot jupiter studies.
Dat (Fuda) Nguyen
LPL Graduate Student
Fuda is interested in the physics and habitability of exoplanets and characterization of their atmosphere. He is currently working on brown dwarfs’ atmosphere variability through time-resolved light-curve observations. Previously he also worked on dust physics in exoplanet atmosphere and the ISM. As an astronomer from Vietnam, he is very interested in astronomy outreach to underrepresented communities in academia, internationally and domestically.
Website: https://fudanguyen.wordpress.com
Arin M. Avsar
LPL Graduate Student
Arin is a 1st year graduate student working on direct imaging of debris disks, which are the rocky and icy leftovers of planet formation. These Asteroid and Kuiper Belt analogs give us insight into how young planetary systems evolve over time, which is essential to understanding the early history of Earth and our Solar System.
Megan Mansfield, PhD
Hubble/Sagan Fellow
Megan received her PhD from the University of Chicago in 2021, where she performed spectroscopic observations and modeling of highly irradiated exoplanets, ranging in size from hot terrestrial planets to ultra-hot Jupiters. Megan’s research focuses on the spectroscopic characterization of exoplanet atmospheres. She uses a variety of ground-based and space-based observations to study planetary formation, physics, chemistry, and habitability.
Visit Megan’s website at: https://meganmansfield.github.io/
Kevin Wagner, PhD
NASA Hubble/Sagan Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. 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 zones of the closest Sun-like stars, such as Alpha Centauri and Sirius, which shows that imaging smaller, potentially Earth-like planets is within reach of upcoming telescopes.
Visit Kevin’s website at: Kevin’s website
Martin Schlecker, PhD
Alien Earths Postdoctoral Researcher
Martin studies the formation of planetary systems with a focus on exoplanet demographics and planets around cool stars. His tools of choice are 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. He joined the group in 2022.
Visit Martin’s website at https://matiscke.github.io
Ritvik Basant
Ritvik is a Junior majoring in Physics and Astronomy, with a minor in Mathematics. His research focuses on characterizing habitable exoplanets using statistical assessment based on planetary bond albedo and orbital period priors.
Zach Werber
Physics & Astronomy
Zach is a senior majoring in physics and astronomy, with a minor in mathematics. His research interest is in using high-contrast imaging to study exoplanet atmospheres, with a particular interest in applying this technique around nearby stars to search for and characterize potentially habitable planets.
Gabriel Weible
Physics & Astronomy
Gabe is an Honors junior majoring in Astronomy and Physics, with a minor in Mathematics. His research focuses on high-contrast direct imaging of exoplanets and brown dwarfs using ground-based telescopes. Some of his current work includes the characterization of a circumbinary brown dwarf in the Pleiades, including analysis of its orbit, spectrum, and possible formation scenarios.
Website: www.gabeweible.com
Doctoral Dissertations directed by Daniel Apai:
Ben Wei Peng Lew, 2021:
Self-Luminous Worlds with Exotic Clouds: Characterizing Clouds in Brown Dwarf Atmospheres
Alex Bixel, 2021:
Statistical Strategies for Characterizing Habitable Exoplanets
Kevin Wagner, 2020:
Imaging Forming Planetary Systems Towards Imaging Exo-Earths
Yifan Zhou, 2019:
Time-Resolved Observations of Directly-Imaged Planetary-Mass Companions and Exoplanets
Benjamin Rackham, 2018:
The Transit Light Source Effect
Some Former Members of our Group
Dr Sebastiaan Krijt, Lecturer at University of Exeter, UK
Dr Alex Bixel, SpaceX
Jose Angel Perez Chavez, PhD Student, Howard University
Dr Ben Wei Peng Lew, Postdoctoral Researcher at NASA Ames
Aidan Gibbs, Astronomy Graduate student at UCLA
Dr. Benjamin Rackham, 51 Pegasi b Fellow at MIT
Dr. Yifan Zhou, McDonald Fellow and 51 Pegasi b Fellow at UT Austin
Dr Elena Manjavacas, Assistant Astronomer at Space Telescope Science Institute
Dr Jon Rees, Astronomer, University of Texas
Dr Theodora Karalidi, Assistant Professor at UCF
Dr Hao Yang, Postdoctoral Researcher, now Data Scientist at Carvana
Dr Esther Buenzli, Postdoctoral Researcher, then Ambizione Fellow at ETH Zurich, now data scientist
Jake Hanson, UA Undergraduate Researcher, now ASU Astronomy Graduate Student
Justin Rogers, Astronomy Graduate student, Johns Hopkins University
Quadry Chance, UA Undergraduate student, now Fisk-Vanderbilt Astronomy graduate student
Emily Berkson, UA Undergraduate Researcher, now MS student at RIT
Davin Flateau, UA LPL MS Student, now Adjunct Instructor at Univ Cincinnati
Michael Iuzzolino, UA Undergraduate Student, now graduate student at UC Boulder
Dr Veselin Kostov, John Hopkins Graduate Student, now NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at GSFC
William Nolan, Calbridge Summer Student
Dr Laszlo Szucs, Summer Student at STScI; now Postdoctoral Researcher at MPE Germany