Lisa Dang

Lisa’s research focuses on characterizing the climate of planets orbiting other stars, known as exoplanets. As extreme cases are often the most revealing, she is particularly interested in giant planets orbiting very close to their parent star known as hot Jupiters. Blasted with radiation from their star, these exotic worlds are hot enough to vaporize rock and present a unique opportunity to study atmospheres in extreme conditions. To investigate the properties of these exoplanets’ climate, she uses observations with NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope to observe their thermal radiation to construct their temperature maps and identify properties that are governing the wind patterns on these planets. Moving forward, she will be using the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, Spitzer’s cutting-edge successor with spectroscopic capabilities, to improve on these techniques and chase after smaller planets!