Bellagio Residency: May 2023
Projects: “Remote Sensing of Alien Worlds – Spectroscopy of Exoplanets” and “The Brave New Space-Information Age”
Ray Jayawardhana is an award-winning, widely-published astronomer whose research focuses on remote-sensing of planets around other stars (exoplanets), as well as studies of star and planet formation. His research, writing, and outreach have led to numerous accolades, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard and the Carl Sagan Medal. Ray visited Bellagio in May 2023 to work on scientific papers on characterizing exoplanets and to consider the implications of frequent commercial space launches and the high spatial resolution data gathered by thousands of satellites in Earth orbit. He is currently the Harold Tanner Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, Hans A. Bethe Professor, and Professor of Astronomy at Cornell University.