News from the Chair

Diana Dragomir will join the Department of Physics and Astronomy as a Research Assistant Professor in August, 2019, and as an Assistant Professor in August, 2020.

Dr. Dragomir obtained her Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of British Columbia in 2013. She was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California Santa Barbara and at the University of Chicago. She is currently a Hubble Fellow at MIT.

Dr. Dragomir’s research focuses on the demographics and atmospheres of exoplanets smaller than Neptune and orbiting bright, nearby stars. She measures their sizes with the MOST and TESS space telescopes, and their masses using a variety of ground-based observatories. She uses observations from the Hubble, Spitzer and (soon) James Webb space telescopes to investigate the atmospheres of these planets. Dr. Dragomir combines all these data to better understand the physical properties and formation of small exoplanets, and how these depend on the planets’ orbits and the properties of their host stars. For more information, see her website.

Though Dr. Dragomir is from Canada, she can appreciate both cold and warm climates. She enjoys reading, cooking, hiking, climbing and skiing. She also practices pastimes that come naturally with being an astronomer, like photography and traveling.

Welcome Dr. Dragomir!