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Julien de Wit joined the faculty of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) at MIT in 2018. He holds a bachelor's degree in physics and mechanics (2008) and a master's in aerospace engineering (2011) from Université de Liège, completing his master's studies at the Institut Supérieur de l’Aéronautique et de l’Espace with a focus on astrophysics, planetology, and space systems science. In 2017, de Wit was part of an international team of astronomers from MIT and the University of Liège, Belgium, who announced the record-breaking discovery of seven rocky, Earth-sized planets orbiting the habitable zone of TRAPPIST-1, an ultracool dwarf star located 39 light-years from Earth. He led the expansion of the SPECULOOS telescope network into the northern hemisphere, with installations including MIT's Artemis Teide Observatory in Tenerife. De Wit's research interests include the discovery and characterization of new worlds, particularly exoplanet atmospheres and habitability, advanced analysis techniques for mapping exoplanet atmospheres, and studying radiative tidal interactions in eccentric planetary systems. He aims to discover and characterize astronomical bodies for further detailed study by NASA's major space telescopes such as Hubble, Spitzer, and James Webb.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology • Cambridge, MA
Teaching and researching in the field of planetary science, focusing on the discovery and characterization of exoplanets.