Exoplanet PhD Graduates from the University of Chicago

Exoplanet Graduates

This is a list of all students who have graduated with a PhD in exoplanets from the University of Chicago.

2023

Adina Feinstein, now a Sagan Fellow at CU Boulder, was advised by Jacob Bean and wrote a thesis titled, "A Multi-Wavelength Investigation of Young Stellar and Planetary Systems."

Jisheng Zhang, now a postdoc at Princeton in Computational/Theoretical Planetary Modeling as part of the Center for Matter at Atomic Pressures, was advised by Leslie Rogers and wrote a thesis titled, "Thermal and Magnetic History of Rocky Exoplanets."

2022

Nora Bailey, now science communicator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was advised by Daniel Fabrycky in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics and wrote a thesis titled, "Planet-Planet Interactions in Exoplanet Systems." 

2021

Jade Checlair was advised by Dorian Abbot in the Department of the Geophysical Sciences and wrote a thesis titled, "Theoretical study of habitable terrestrial planets and statistical tests to inform future observations."

Gregory Gilbert, now a postdoc at UCLA, was advised by Daniel Fabrycky and wrote a thesis titled, "Accurate Modeling of Grazing Transits Using Umbrella Sampling."

Megan Mansfield, now a Sagan Fellow at the University of Arizona, was advised primarily by Jacob Bean with Edwin Kite as a co-advisor and wrote a thesis titled, "Revealing the Atmospheres of Highly Irradiated Exoplanets: From Ultra-Hot Jupiters to Venus Analogues."

Andrew Neil was advised by Leslie Rogers and wrote a thesis titled, "Constraining Exoplanet Composition Demographics with Large-Scale Surveys."

2017

Megan Bedell, now an Associate Research Scientist at the Simons Center for Computational Astrophysics, was advised by Jacob Bean and wrote a thesis titled, "Illuminating the Origins of Planets with Solar Twins."

Sean Mills, now a machine learning credit modeling researcher at Theorem, was advised by Dan Fabrycky and wrote a thesis titled, "Detecting and Interpreting the Dynamical Evolution of Transiting Multiplanet Systems."

Feng Ding, now an Assistant Professor at Peking University, was advised by Ray Pierrehumbert and wrote a thesis titled, "Climate dynamics of condensible-rich atmospheres."

2016

Daniel Koll, now an Assistant Professor at Peking University, was advised by Dorian Abbot in the Department of the Geophysical Sciences and wrote a thesis titled, "Dry Atmospheric Circulations on Rocky Exoplanets."

Laura Kreidberg, now the Director of the Department of Atmospheric Physics of Exoplanets at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, was advised by Jacob Bean in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics and wrote a thesis titled, "Glimpses of Far Away Places: Intensive Atmosphere Characterization of Extrasolar Planets."