SARA SEAGER, Associate Professor
of Physics and Ellen Swallow Richards Associate Professor of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Research Interests
Sara Seager’s current research interests are focused upon extrasolar planet
atmospheres and interiors. Over 200 exoplanets are known to orbit nearby stars.
Now that their existence is firmly established, a new era of exoplanet characterization
has begun. A subset of exoplanets, called transiting planets, pass in front
of and behind their stars, as seen from Earth. Transiting planets have
immeasurably changed the field of exoplanets because their physical properties,
including average density and atmospheric thermal emission, can be now be
routinely measured. Seager’s group aims to understand the atmospheric
composition and the interior structure of exoplanets, with a focus on the new
and growing data set of transiting exoplanets.
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Biographical Sketch
Sara Seager received her B.Sc. in mathematics and physics from the University
of Toronto in 1994. She earned a Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard University in
1999, where she investigated recombination in the early Universe before moving
to the then brand-new field of exoplanets. Seager was a long-term member at the
Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, and a senior
research staff member at the Carnegie Institution of Washington
in Washington, D.C., before joining the MIT faculty in 2007.
Seager was awarded the American Astronomical Society’s
Helen B. Warner prize in 2007 for her work on extrasolar planet
atmospheres.
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Selected Publications
Forthcoming.
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