Miranda Herman

Primary Advisor: Ray Jayawardhana

Secondary Advisor: Yanqin Wu

Miranda Herman completed two B.Sc. degrees in Physics and Earth & Space Exploration (Astrophysics) at Arizona State University in 2016. She is now a 2nd year PhD student in Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Toronto, where she holds an NSERC CGS-D award.

Miranda’s research fits well into the Exoplanet Discovery theme of TEPS. Her past and current work focuses on two fascinating elements of exoplanet astronomy: characterizing the population and system architecture of outer planets using statistical analyses of Kepler data, and characterizing the atmospheres and orbital dynamics of hot Jupiters via high-resolution transmission and phase-curve spectroscopy. Understanding these unique populations of planets will help us develop a better grasp of the exoplanet population as a whole, illuminating the missing connections between observation and our theories of planet formation and migration.