Juliana García-Mejía

Juliana García-Mejía is a combined 51 Pegasi b and Pappalardo Postdoctoral Fellow at MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. She holds academic roles as a Research Fellow and leads the Tierras Observatory project as Principal Investigator (PI). Her research focuses on developing astronomical instrumentation for exoplanet studies, including ultra-precise photometry and high-resolution spectroscopy.

Education: PhD in Astrophysics from Harvard University (2023). She completed her undergraduate studies at Harvard, majoring in Astrophysics and Physics.

Research Interests:
• Design of instruments like the Tierras Observatory and FIOS spectrograph prototype.
• Detection of terrestrial exoplanets, moons around exoplanets, and low-mass stellar hosts.
• Molecular oxygen (O₂) detection in exoplanet atmospheres.

Her work combines innovative instrument development with observational astronomy, aiming to address questions about planetary habitability and life in the universe.

Awards:

• 51 Pegasi b Fellow (Heising-Simons Foundation)
• Pappalardo Fellow in Physics, MIT
• Harvard Horizons Scholar (2022)

Labs/Teams: PI of the Tierras Observatory at Mt. Hopkins, Arizona; co-investigator in the FIOS Project (GMT-based spectrograph).