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Gael M. Roudier

Photo of Gael Roudier

Address:

4800 Oak Grove Drive
M/S 169-327

Pasadena, CA 91109

Curriculum Vitae:

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Member of:

Exoplanet Discovery and Science

Biography

My scientific research is devoted to the study of extrasolar planets, commonly called ’other worlds beyond the solar system’, potential hosts of forms of life.

I specialize in both predicting the signal (modeling) we would acquire from the widely spread transit spectroscopy observation method, allowing to characterize those worlds through their atmospheric content during an eclipse event (planet in front or behind of its host star), as well as deriving the best estimates of the exoplanet atmospheric structure such as water vapor or carbon dioxide quantities from those datasets (parameter retrieval).

I use the experience from my initial background (Cosmic Microwave Background – Planck Scientist) in building original data analysis methods for Exoplanet science. As the main contributor and lead scientist, I created the Excalibur pipeline, a data reduction software suite dedicated to the analysis of exoplanet atmospheres for comparative exoplanet science. While Excalibur is a software suite encompassing the whole chain of data analysis, from data reduction to interpretation, it includes Cerberus, an atmospheric modeling and parameter retrieval code, designed to evaluate and compare the derived atmospheric content from data under different chemical assumptions. Both of them are supporting the Contribution to ARIEL Spectroscopy of Exoplanets (CASE) mission, selected by NASA as Mission of Opportunity and launching in 2028, that I serve as Co-I, Science Data System Lead and Science Team member.

Education

  • PhD in Cosmology, ''AstroParticule & Cosmologie'' APC laboratory, Université Paris Diderot – Paris7. (2011)
  • Master Universe Science and Spatial Technologies, L'Observatoire de Paris. (2008)

Professional Experience

  • NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory / Caltech
    • Research Scientist (2015 – present)
    • Post Doctoral Researcher (2012 – 2015)
  • L’Observatoire de Paris - LERMA
    • Post Doctoral Researcher (2011 – 2012)

Research Interests

  • Transit Spectroscopy
  • Exoplanet Atmosphere modeling
  • Parameter Retrieval

Selected Awards

  • JPL VOYAGER award for creating Cerberus
  • GRUBER Foundation 2018 cosmology prize (Planck Team)
  • NASA Group achievement award for successfully developing analysis tools allowing the release of Planck data. (US Planck Team)
  • ESA Outstanding contribution to the Planck mission award

Selected Publications

1. A Temperature Trend for Clouds and Hazes in Exoplanets Atmospheres (Estrela et al., 2022)

The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Volume 941, Number 1

2. Identification of carbon dioxide in an exoplanet atmosphere (JWST Transiting Exoplanet Community ERS Team, 2023)

Nature Volume 614, pages 649-652 (2023)

3. Characterization of an Instrument Model for Exoplanet Transit Spectrum Estimation through Wide-scale Analysis on HST Data (Huber Felly et al. 2021)

The Astronomical Journal, Volume 163, Number 1

4. A unique hot Jupiter spectral sequence with evidence for compositional diversity (Mansfield et al., 2021)

Nature Astronomy 5, 1224-1232 (2021)

5. Detection of Aerosols at Microbar Pressures in an Exoplanet Atmosphere (Estrela et al., 2021)

The Astronomical Journal, Volume 162, Number 3

6. Disequilibrium chemistry in exoplanet atmospheres observed with the Hubble Space Telescope (Roudier et al., 2021)

The Astronomical Journal, Volume 162, Number 2

Exhaustive list (135) in CV