Julien H. Girard

Dr. Julien H. Girard is an instrumentation physicist turned observational astronomer, AURA Scientist and Senior Research Staff at STScI which he joined in August 2017. Dr. Julien Girard looks for and studies exoplanetary systems using high angular resolution and high contrast imaging techniques from space and from the ground. With collaborators, he characterizes giant exoplanets, brown dwarfs and circumstellar disks with direct imaging, sometimes combined with spectroscopy and/or polarimetry. Expanding our understanding of the demographics and atmospheric composition of exoplanets gives clues on their formation and migration mechanisms. "With JWST we are now starting to image more mature giant planets in the infrared in thermal emission. With the Roman Coronagraph we will hopefully image a few in visible reflected light, just like we see Jupiter in the night sky!"

Functionally at STScI and since 2017 Dr. Julien Girard leads coronagraphy efforts on two NASA Astrophysics flagship missions: JWST and Roman. As JWST/NIRCam Instrument Scientist, he led the commissioning of its Coronagraphy mode (2022) in concert with University of Arizona and STScI colleagues. From 2009 to 2017 Dr. Julien Girard was Operations Staff Astronomer at European Southern Observatory (ESO)'s Paranal Observatory in Chile. He spent nearly a thousand nights in the Atacama Desert and was Lead Instrument Scientist for two VLT adaptive optics instruments: SPHERE and NACO. Girard took part in countless commissioning and upgrade activities, determinant to many scientific achievements and collaborations: SPHERE SHINE GTO survey, NACO ISPY GTO survey, NACO Vortex Project, ExoGRAVITY and more recently the JWST-TST GTO, The Roman Community Participation Program.

In 2008-2009, Girard was Assistant Professor at Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN), Mexico. From 2006 to 2008 he was an Instrumentation Postdoctoral Fellow at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (UNAM). Dr. Girard finds it extremely motivating to mentor students and postdocs, gather people towards the most rewarding human experience and the best possible scientific outcome. As an international team player, Girard has contributed to several impactful discoveries, has co-authored about 200 papers in scholarly journals, and has given numerous scientific and outreach presentations.

Education:

PhD in Physics and Astrophysics, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 
MS in Astrophysics, Université Grenoble Alpes
MS in Physics, University of Utah
BS in Physics, Université de Savoie Mont - Blanc, Annecy
B.Tech in Physics, Université Savoie Mont-Blanc, Annecy

Science Interests:

• Exoplanets, Brown Dwarfs

• Circumstellar Disks - High Contrast Imaging

• Adaptive Optics

• Coronagraphy - Astronomical Instrumentation

• Observing Techniques/Strategies

• Future Observatories

Research Topics: Star Formation, Histories, and Evolution; Exoplanets; Instrumentation; High Contrast Imaging; Adaptive Optics; Coronagraphy; Brown Dwarfs; Circumstellar Disks; Multiple Stars

Professional Websites:

juliengirard.space

romancoronagraph.space

exoplanetdatachallenge.com

ORCID ID: 0000-0001-8627-0404