Brandon CoyGraduate Student

Research Focus:

Exoplanet atmospheres, habitability, biosignatures

Email:

bpcoy@uchicago.edu

Office:

Hinds 459

Biography

I earned a B.A. in astrophysics from UC Berkeley in 2019 and a M.S. from UChicago in 2022.  I worked at several NASA centers in between my undergraduate and graduate careers to gain more experience in research.  Outside of school, I am very interested in dance!

Research Interests

My interests lie in combining astronomy and planetary science to see what we can learn about a planet from observations, as well as what we can infer from models.  I am very excited by early results from the James Webb Space Telescope and what they can tell us about the surfaces and atmospheres of small exoplanets.  I am PI of a Cycle 3 program aimed at detecting signatures of magma-atmosphere interaction in a young sub-Neptune atmosphere and co-I of various JWST programs:  Is PSR J2322-2650b really a carbon planet?, IN/AT-SYNC: INterior/ATmosphere SurveY of sub-Neptunes in Chains, Observing the Atmosphere of a Pulsar Planet, Completing the sub-Neptune Spectral Sequence with HD 86226 c, The only known atmosphere on a rocky exoplanet?, and Cliff Hangers: Testing for Atmosphere-Mantle Interactions in Radius Cliff Planets.  I am also particularly interested in how we can detect signs of life (biosignatures), especially with the upcoming Habitable Worlds Observatory.  I am also interested in what geological processes are important in keeping a planet habitable, including the carbonate-silicate weathering cycle.

Selected Publications

Brandon Park Coy, Jegug Ih, Edwin S. Kite, Daniel D. B. Koll, Moritz Tenthoff, Jacob L. Bean, Megan Weiner Mansfield, Michael Zhang, Qiao Xue, Eliza M.-R. Kempton, Kay Wohlfarth, Renyu Hu, Xintong Lyu, and Christian Wöhler, The Astrophysical Journal
Population-level Hypothesis Testing with Rocky Planet Emission Data: A Tentative Trend in the Brightness Temperatures of M-Earths

Brandon Park Coy, Edwin Kite, RJ Graham, The Planetary Science Journal
The Role of Tectonic Luck in the Long-term Habitability of Abiotic Earth-like Planets

Brandon Park Coy, Conor A. Nixon, Naomi Rowe-Gurney, Richard Achterberg, Nicholas A. Lombardo, Leigh N. Fletcher, Patrick Irwin,  The Planetary Science Journal

Spitzer IRS Observations of Titan as a Precursor to JWST MIRI Observations

Sebastian Zieba, Laura Kreidberg, Brandon Park Coy, Aaron Bello-Arufe, Kimberly Paragas, Xintong Lyu, Renyu Hu, Aishwarya Iyer, Edwin S. Kite, Daniel D.B. Koll, Kay Wohlfarth, Emerson Whittaker, Heather Knutson, Robin Wordsworth, Caroline Morley, Laura Schaefer, Nature Astronomy
The dark and featureless surface of rocky exoplanet LHS 3844 b from JWST mid-infrared spectroscopy

Rafael Luque, Brandon Park Coy, Qiao Xue, Adina D. Feinstein, Eva-Maria Ahrer, Quentin Changeat, Michael Zhang, Sarah E. Moran, Jacob L. Bean, Edwin Kite, Megan Weiner Mansfield, and Enric Pallé, The Astronomical Journal
A Dark, Bare Rock for TOI-1685 b from a JWST NIRSpec G395H Phase Curve