Dr. Malena Rice

Biography

Malena Rice is an Assistant Professor at the Yale Department of Astronomy. Her research focuses on the formation and evolution of planetary systems, covering topics such as exoplanets, stars, and the outer solar system. Dr. Rice’s recent work has concentrated on exoplanet spin-orbit distributions, the evolution of hot and warm Jupiters, stellar spectroscopy, TESS solar system science, and the dynamics of exoplanets in binary star systems. She completed her B.A. degrees in Physics and Astrophysics at UC Berkeley in 2017 and is currently pursuing her M.S., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in Astronomy at Yale University. Dr. Rice received the International Astronomical Union (IAU) PhD Prize for her dissertation research and spent a year as the Heising-Simons 51 Pegasi b Postdoctoral Fellow at the MIT Kavli Institute before returning to Yale as an Assistant Professor in 2023. Her leadership roles include support for NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) missions, as well as involvement in the NASA ExoExplorers program for early-career exoplanet scientists and participation in the Exoplanet Exploration Program Analysis Group (ExoPAG). She has authored 80 academic publications and has been recognized as a RCSA Scialog Fellow, a Rising Talent in the Women’s Forum Economy & Society, and is a member of the Forbes 30 Under 30 list.

Research Interests