Leonardo dos Santos

Leonardo dos Santos joined STScI as a Postdoctoral Fellow in 2021, and then as an Assistant Astronomer in 2023. He leads the Terra Research Team, which seeks to understand the evolution of atmospheres in exoplanets through observational experiments and theoretical modeling. He is also part of ExoSTScI, the overarching research group on exoplanets of the institute.

Currently, Leonardo is heavily interested in modeling and observing atmospheric escape in transiting exoplanets. He is the lead author of the open-source code p-winds, used to interpret observations of atmospheric escape. Furthermore, he led several observing programs with the Hubble Space Telescope to observe this process in young and ultrahot exoplanets. He collaborates with several research, including but not limited to the teams led by Aline Vidotto (Leiden University), David Sing (JHU), Nestor Espinoza (STScI), and David Ehrenreich (University of Geneva). He is also interested in stellar rotation and evolution, which stems from his Master's research work. 

Education:

PhD in Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Geneva, Switzerland
MSc in Astronomy, University of São Paulo, Brazil

Science Interests:

• Exoplanets
• Atmospheric Escape and Evolution
• Exoplanet Atmosphere
• Habitability
• Stellar Rotation
• Stellar Activity
• M Dwarfs
• Interstellar Medium

Research Topics:  Exoplanets; Star Formation; Histories, and Evolution; Instrumentation 

Professional Websites:

ladsantos.github.io

ORCID ID: 0000-0002-2248-3838