Caroline Piaulet

Ph.D. Student, Université de Montréal

Caroline started her PhD in 2019 at the University of Montreal, under the supervision of Björn Benneke.

Caroline’s current research interests include exoplanet characterization, the study of their climates and atmospheres and how they relate to how these planets formed and evolved over time under the effect of other planets as well as the irradiation of their host star. Her work mostly relies on observations from space telescopes including Kepler, TESS, Hubble, Spitzer and JWST and stretches to the modeling realm, from the search for atmospheres around small rocky exoplanets to the identification of molecular species in the transmission and emission spectra of giant exoplanets.

She is currently developing models for a type of planet that has no equivalent in the solar system, made up of a large fraction of molecules such as water, methane or ammonia. In parallel, she searches for signs of atmospheres around potentially habitable rocky planets and characterizes the effects of their host stars on the detectability of such atmospheres.

The projects she previous led proposed a new formation pathway for lightweight gas giant planets, or “super-puffs” (Piaulet et al. 2021) and provided observational evidence for the existence of planets with compositions rich in water or similar volatile species “water worlds” (Piaulet et al. 2022).

Caroline is involved in a variety of education and public outreach activities which include InitiaSciences. She founded this nonprofit organization which also includes other iREx members in 2021, and which allows young students in high school (secondaire 3-4-5) and cegep to take part in ongoing research projects, mentored by early-career researchers.

Supervisor

Björn Benneke

Caroline Piaulet
Ph.D. Student, Université de Montréal