Dr. Rachel B. Fernandes
As of August 2023, I hold the position of President's Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University under the mentorship of Dr. Rebekah Dawson, Dr. Eric Ford, and Dr. Jason Wright.
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My research focuses on connecting diverse observations of planetary systems to fundamental theories in planet formation, while placing the Solar System and life on Earth into context. I am currently working on detecting transiting planets in young clusters, associations, and moving groups. I hope to compare the demographics of these planets with that of Kepler's Gyr-old population in order to understand how these planets have evolved with time.
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I currently serve as the Co-Chair of NASA's ExoPAG Exoplanet Demographics Science Interest Group 2 (SIG2) along with Dr. Samson Johnson. Our current priorities are to enable demographics via NASA's JWST and Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, help provide constraints to the frequency of Earth-size habitable zone planets, and work towards synthesized demographics across various detection techniques.
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I completed my Ph.D. in Planetary Sciences at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory & the Department of Planetary Sciences at The University of Arizona where I worked with Dr. Ilaria Pascucci and Dr. Gijs Mulders on the detection, characterization and demographics of exoplanetary systems using data from both ground- and space-based telescopes.
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My research background in planet formation spans from my undergraduate work at the University of Cincinnati from where, under the mentorship of Dr. Mike Sitko, I modeled the near-IR variability and the outer structures (gaps, rings, spirals arms, etc.) of the dust component of disks around Herbig Ae/Be stars.
I am also a part of the NASA NExSS Alien Earths/Earths in Other Solar Systems (EOS) team where we integrate research results from fourteen multi-disciplinary projects to advance our understanding of how nearby planetary systems formed and which systems are more likely to harbor habitable worlds. Identifying the closest, likely habitable worlds is a major goal of astrobiology and also a key step in NASA’s search for life in the Universe.
