Exoplanet surveys such as Kepler and TESS have been spectacularly successful in identifying thousands of planets with breathtaking diversity. These discoveries help place the Solar System in context and inform our understanding of how planets form and evolve. Finding large numbers of planets also enables statistical studies of the exoplanet population, through which we can uncover which types of planets are more common than others and find correlations between planet abundance and the properties of stars. Such exoplanet demographic studies are key for constraining planet formation and evolution theories and for predicting the science yields of future missions, especially time-critical surveys that will attempt to detect and characterize potentially habitable, Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars. I will highlight my contributions to the field of demographics, from my past work on large and small planet populations with Kepler and its implications for the search for other Earths, to my current work with TESS to significantly expand our understanding of planet populations around more diverse stellar samples than were probed by Kepler. Finally, I will identify a set of important open questions that remain to be answered and outline my future goals to push the field of demographics to new frontiers.
Bio:
I am a TESS postdoctoral associate at MKI. I received my PhD in Astronomy from the University of British Columbia in 2020.
My research is primarily focused on the detection of transiting exoplanets and the statistical determination of exoplanet demographics. For my PhD, I developed an independent pipeline to search archival Kepler data for new exoplanets, and estimated exoplanet occurrence rates from my planet catalogue including the abundance of potentially habitable planets around Sun-like stars. I am particularly interested in improving techniques for deriving and modeling exoplanet occurrence rates, such as through the application of approximate Bayesian computation and combining constraints from multiple types of surveys and exoplanet detection methods in a joint analysis. I am also interested in developing fully automated vetting pipelines and characterizing catalogue false positive rates.
I am committed to science outreach, and have given dozens of talks, hosted science workshops, and participated in podcasts aimed at the general public, high school students, and university students since I was an undergraduate.
Learn More:
View Michelle's webpage from MIT's Kavli Institute here
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2023-02-27T11:00:002023-02-27T12:00:00Exploring Exoplanet Populations with Kepler, TESS, and BeyondEvent Information:
Abstract:
Exoplanet surveys such as Kepler and TESS have been spectacularly successful in identifying thousands of planets with breathtaking diversity. These discoveries help place the Solar System in context and inform our understanding of how planets form and evolve. Finding large numbers of planets also enables statistical studies of the exoplanet population, through which we can uncover which types of planets are more common than others and find correlations between planet abundance and the properties of stars. Such exoplanet demographic studies are key for constraining planet formation and evolution theories and for predicting the science yields of future missions, especially time-critical surveys that will attempt to detect and characterize potentially habitable, Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars. I will highlight my contributions to the field of demographics, from my past work on large and small planet populations with Kepler and its implications for the search for other Earths, to my current work with TESS to significantly expand our understanding of planet populations around more diverse stellar samples than were probed by Kepler. Finally, I will identify a set of important open questions that remain to be answered and outline my future goals to push the field of demographics to new frontiers.
Bio:
I am a TESS postdoctoral associate at MKI. I received my PhD in Astronomy from the University of British Columbia in 2020.
My research is primarily focused on the detection of transiting exoplanets and the statistical determination of exoplanet demographics. For my PhD, I developed an independent pipeline to search archival Kepler data for new exoplanets, and estimated exoplanet occurrence rates from my planet catalogue including the abundance of potentially habitable planets around Sun-like stars. I am particularly interested in improving techniques for deriving and modeling exoplanet occurrence rates, such as through the application of approximate Bayesian computation and combining constraints from multiple types of surveys and exoplanet detection methods in a joint analysis. I am also interested in developing fully automated vetting pipelines and characterizing catalogue false positive rates.
I am committed to science outreach, and have given dozens of talks, hosted science workshops, and participated in podcasts aimed at the general public, high school students, and university students since I was an undergraduate.
Learn More:
View Michelle's webpage from MIT's Kavli Institute here
Event Location:
HENN 318
