The Many Worlds Around Other Stars - SOLD OUT

Speaker: John Brewer started as an Assistant Professor at San Francisco State University in 2019 where his research group is focusing on the detection and characterization of exoplanets. His most recent work demonstrated the power of Extreme Precision Radial Velocities to uncover previously hidden planetary architectures in well studied systems. As a postdoc, then Associate Researcher at Yale University, Brewer continued his pursuit of accurate and precise stellar abundances to better understand planet formation while designing and developing the software for the EXPRES spectrograph. In 2015 he presented a new spectroscopic analysis procedure that delivers gravities consistent with those from asteroseismology in addition to abundances for 15 elements. Using this, and an updated catalog from Kepler targets in 2018, he was able to show that compact systems of rocky planets make up an increasing number of planetary systems at lower metallicities, that C/O ratios are low in local stars leading the magnesium silicate geology and that hot Jupiters may migrate via disk-free migration, and that initial chemical differences don't account for small planet radius differences. In 2010, Dr. Brewer designed the Planet Hunters citizen science tool and in 2011 built a web interface for the CHIRON spectrograph, drawing on knowledge from his previous career as a software developer and web designer.