ExoExplorers
Meet the ExoGuides
2025 ExoGuides
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Emily Rauscher
Research Specialty: Three-dimensional models of exoplanet atmospheres
Affiliation: University of Michigan
Short Bio:
I am currently an Associate Professor in Astronomy at the University of Michigan. I grew up in California, received my B.A. in Astrophysics & Physics from U.C. Berkeley, my Ph.D. in Astronomy from Columbia, and spent time as a NASA Sagan Postdoctoral Fellow in the Planetary Sciences Department at the University of Arizona and the Department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton.
I work to characterize exoplanet atmospheres through: 1) three-dimensional modeling of their atmospheric circulation patterns, and 2) identifying ways that 3-D effects show up in different types of observations (for example using eclipse mapping or Doppler shifts in high-resolution spectroscopy). I have mostly focused on hot Jupiters, both because they are in an extreme and interesting atmospheric regime and because they are the best targets for atmospheric characterization measurements.
What do you do and what inspires you to do this work?
As an undergrad I thought it was impressive that we knew exoplanets were out there, but they didn't really grab my attention as something I wanted to study. I went to grad school thinking that I might end up studying compact objects (as an observer, which is funny if you know me now). However, for my first-year project I decided to give theory a try because there was an interesting project presented by one of the faculty members, Kristen Menou. It was to explore whether eclipse mapping could be used to resolve the daysides of hot Jupiters. (This was 2005, the same year the first ever secondary eclipses were published. Now, with JWST, we've entered the era of eclipse maps!) I was hooked and have studied exoplanet atmospheres and their multi-dimensionality ever since. It was just so cool to me that these were actual worlds, made into real places by being able to measure what they were like.
The guiding inspiration of my career has been to figure out what complexity, or in how much detail, we can measure exoplanet atmospheric properties. I run 3-D models to explore what sort of conditions might exist and then figure out how those physical properties might show up in different types of observations. There will be a limit to how much detail we can measure---we'll never measure exo-atmospheres as well as those in our Solar System---but we don't know where that limit is yet. It's been a lot of fun working to push that limit farther and farther.
What do you wish you knew earlier in your career?
I've often had the sense that I didn't really understand a career transition (e.g., grad school to postdoc or postdoc to faculty) or how I should be thinking about it until after I was on the other side. I suppose that some of this is just that you can't really know what a thing is like until you experience it, but I also wish that I had asked more questions and received more advice. This is part of why I love giving professional advice now and trying to demystify this career path.
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Garima Singh
Research Specialty: High-Contrast Imaging of Exoplanets
Affiliation: Gemini Observatory
Short Bio: I am the Project Scientist of the Gemini Planet Imager-2.0 (GPI2.0) instrument at the Gemini North Observatory. One of my responsibilities is to assist Gemini and the GPI2.0 instrument-building team in commissioning GPI2.0 (~ late 2025) at Gemini North. Some of the commissioning tasks I am currently working on include assembling and writing pre- and post-ship Acceptance Tests & Planning documents, preparing Telescope Integration & Planning tasks, including the flexure testing and robustness against vibration, and Verification and Commissioning planning for thorough on-sky characterization of the new technical and scientific capabilities of GPI2.0.
Before joining Gemini as an Adaptive Optics Scientist in December 2022, I worked as a Research Officer at NRC Herzberg Astronomy & Astrophysics Research Center in Victoria, BC, Canada (2021-2022), a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow at Paris Observatory in France (2018-2020), and a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (2015-2017). I completed my PhD research on the SCExAO instrument at the Subaru Telescope (2012-2015) and received my doctorate (including my master’s, 2008-2010) from the Paris Observatory. Throughout my career, I have developed expertise in wavefront sensing, calibration, and control, active speckle suppression algorithms, and debris disk science using instruments for direct imaging of exoplanets. Before embracing the world of high-contrast imaging, I spent the first twenty years of my life growing up and studying in my homeland, India.
What do you do and what inspires you to do this work?
My drive to pursue this scientific field stems from a deep curiosity about our presence in the cosmos. However, the more I follow exoplanet research, the more it makes me appreciate our magnificent planet Earth. It reminds me that I am one of its ambassadors, and it’s my responsibility to help protect it. It inspires me to have reverence for life itself. I want to use my voice to bridge the gap between our aspirations of finding life beyond Earth and the crucial need to embrace, support, and protect what we already have -- life on Planet Earth.
What do you wish you knew earlier in your career?
I wish I had known earlier how self-judgment and self-doubt are more detrimental than the judgments and doubts of others. I wish I had been more kind, patient, and compassionate toward myself in the face of adversity and for not knowing what I didn’t know yet. This is a lifetime practice, though. I still get many opportunities to work on self-kindness, self-acceptance, and self-compassion as new challenges surface, and I am getting better at it. It’s fun to witness my mental projections dissipating in the void when I discover my evolving self a little more each day :-)
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Gijs Mulders
Research Specialty: Exoplanet Demographics
Affiliation: Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez
Short Bio: Gijs Mulders is an Assistant Professor in Astrophysics at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez in Santiago de Chile. He specializes in demographical studies of exoplanets, characterizing how the properties of exoplanets relate to their host stars and their formation environments.
Originally from the Netherlands, Gijs obtained his PhD in 2013 from the University of Amsterdam on radiative transfer modeling of protoplanetary disks. After relocating to the University of Arizona in Tucson and later to the University of Chicago in 2018, he focussed his postdoctoral research on exoplanets and their formation. His goal is to synthesize a complete picture of planet formation outside of the solar system by connecting statistical studies of exoplanets, numerical models of planet formation, and observations of protoplanetary disks.
In 2021 he relocated to Chile, home of the world’s top observational facilities, to join the newly formed exoplanet group at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez in Santiago. Gijs is trilingual, and likes to go hiking, running, or cycling, as well as enjoying a good beer and attending music festivals.
What do you do and what inspires you to do this work?
My main scientific motivation is understanding why planets are the way we observe them. What in their formation and evolution made them look like this or would make them look different? I don’t think we can really understand our place in the cosmos if we don’t also understand all the paths that weren’t taken. Exoplanets are a great laboratory for this as it shows the variety of outcomes in planetary systems.
On a personal level, I love numerical modeling. Creating something as complex as a star or planet — or a population of them — from scratch, purely by writing lines of code and letting it run, has always fascinated me.
What do you wish you knew earlier in your career?
The importance of prizes, awards, and fellowships. The Dutch culture has an aspect where modesty is valued over standing out. Unfortunately that is not how academia works, and I’ve probably missed a lot of opportunities because I simply did not see the point of expanding my CV early on in my career.
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Beth Biller
Research Specialty: Direct Imaging of Exoplanets
Affiliation: University of Edinburgh
Short Bio: Beth Biller is a professor at the University of Edinburgh. Her research interests center around direct imaging detection and characterization of extrasolar planets and brown dwarfs. She is particularly interested in statistical analysis of large-scale planet surveys and developing techniques to monitor cloud patterns on brown dwarfs and exoplanets through photometric variability She is also active both in current observational efforts and development of future instruments, in particular, as a co-PI of a JWST Early Release science program, PI of Cycle 2 and Cycle 3 JWST observing programs, and as an ESA-appointed scientist to the Roman Coronagraph Community Participation Program.
Beth hails originally from the suburbs of Washington, DC and completed a BA in Astrophysics at Swarthmore College, outside Philadelphia. From there, she progressed inexorably west, first for a PhD at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and then to the middle of the Pacific, to take up a Hubble Fellowship at the University of Hawaii. Her travels then took a swift eastward turn, moving to Heidelberg, Germany to become a Star and Planet Formation Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy. Since late 2013, however, she has stayed in one place, as an academic at the University of Edinburgh.
What do you do and what inspires you to do this work?
I characterize the atmospheres and properties of exoplanets and brown dwarfs using the technique of direct imaging, which is literally taking pictures of planets next to their stars. Direct imaging yields spectroscopy as well as the possibility of time-resolved observations that enable actual weather monitoring on exoplanets. It probes a complementary population of exoplanets compared to transit spectroscopy – direct imaging yields spectra of wide orbit (>5 AU) giant planets, while transit is more sensitive to highly irradiated planets close to their stars. What inspires me to do this work is that I’m just really interested in understanding exoplanets (and brown dwarfs too) as worlds in their own right.
What do you wish you knew earlier in your career?
That no one has all the answers and many people have impostor syndrome. Everyone feels like they are figuring it out as they go along.
