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Armen Tokadjian

Photo of Armen Tokadjian

Address:

4800 Oak Grove Drive

Pasadena, CA 91109

Curriculum Vitae:

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Member of:

Exoplanet Discovery and Science

JPL Postdoc

Biography

My name is Armen Tokadjian and I have been fascinated by astronomy since I was very young and especially after visiting JPL open house back in 2010. Throughout middle and high school, I learned as much as I can about the wonders of outer space, to prepare myself for my dream to work in astrophysics. In graduate school, I studied the tidal dynamics between a planet, star, and moon to assess the potential for real exoplanets to host theoretical exomoons. I learned that moons can be a key component in establishing a habitable world, which is important in our search for extrasolar life.

Education

I completed my B.S. in physics at UCLA in 2018 and then received my PhD in physics from USC in 2023 where I worked with Dr. Anthony Piro at the Carnegie Observatories. In my thesis, I investigated the effect of tides on potential exoplanet-exomoon systems.

Research Interests

I am primarily interested in the search for life outside of our solar system which encompasses a wide variety of topics linked to the habitability of exoplanets, including atmospheres, orbital evolution, and system demographics, such as the effect a natural satellite, or exomoon, will have on the habitability of the host planet. On that note, I am also interested in advancing our efforts to discover the first confirmed exomoon.

Selected Awards

USC-Carnegie Fellowship (2018)

Selected Publications

  1. A. Tokadjian & A.L. Piro, Tidal Heating of Exomoons in Resonance and Implications for Detection, 2023, AJ, 165, 173.
  2. A. Tokadjian & A.L. Piro, Probing Planets with Exomoons: The Cases of Kepler-1708 b and Kepler-1625 b , 2022, ApJL, 929, L2
  3. J.L. Margot,..., A. Tokadjian, et al., A Search for Technosignatures around 31 Sun-like Stars with the Green Bank Telescope at 1.15-1.73 GHz, 2021, AJ, 161, 55.
  4. A. Tokadjian & A.L. Piro, Impact of Tides on the Potential for Exoplanets to Host Exomoons , 2020, AJ, 160, 194.