About.
Michelle recently completed her PhD in Earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Riverside, where she developed research on exoplanet habitability while supported by the NASA FINESST award. Her work addresses a fundamental question in astrobiology: determining the minimum planetary size required to sustain liquid surface water, a critical prerequisite for life as we know it. Her work also focuses on detection and characterization of exoplanets in the habitable zone of their stars. Building on this foundation, Michelle will advance her research as a Stanford Science Fellow beginning Fall 2025, where she plans to expand her planetary habitability models and continue pushing the boundaries of our understanding of where life might exist beyond Earth.
Michelle detects and refines the masses and orbits of exoplanets using a combination of radial velocity (RV), transit and astrometry. She is currently observing 10 known planet systems that have shown indications of additional planets in orbit in order to detect the long period outer companions. These observations have lead to the discovery of 3 planets so far. She was a member of the TESS-Keck Survey (TKS) team that conducted RV followup of TESS Objects of Interest (TOIs) and she lead the discovery paper of TOI-1386 b and c.
Michelle completed her post bachelor honours in astrophysics at University of Southern Queensland, Australia. Here Michelle worked on the occurrence rates of giant exoplanets in the habitable zone of their star and found that while giant planets are less likely to be found in the habitable zone than terrestrial planets, if each giant planet is host to more than one moon then exomoons could be more numerous than terrestrial planets in the habitable zone of their star. This work has direct implications for the fraction of stars in the galaxy that may host habitable terrestrial worlds.
Prior to this Michelle completed her bachelors in physics at University of New England, Australia where she attended San Francisco State University during her year abroad. Here she contributed to a study of the Kepler habitable zone planets where she found that the distribution of planets within the habitable zone closely mirrored the distribution of all known planets. This discovery had major implications for the opportunities of statistical analysis of this relatively small group of habitable zone planets.
Michelle is also a commercial pilot and currently holds an Australian ATPL with plans to convert this to an FAA APT.
Michelle Hill - Planet Huntress
