George Ricker
TESS Principal Investigator
David Latham
Director of Science
Co-I
Sara Seager
Deputy Director of Science
Co-I
Roland Vanderspek
TESS Deputy PI
Co-I
TESS Science Office (TSO)
TSO Core:
Natalia Guerrero
MIT
TOI Manager
MIT-TESS Communications Lead
Dave Charbonneau
CFA
Professor of Astronomy
Co-I
Karen Collins
SAO
TOI/TFOP
Chelsea Huang
MIT
Torres Postdoctoral Fellow
Pipeline, Data validation, TOIs
Samuel Quinn
SAO
TOIs, TFOP: Spectroscopy Lead
Martin Paegert
SAO
TIC: Database Lead
Collaborator
Zachory Berta-Thompson
UC Boulder
General
Andrew Vanderburg
UT Austin
TOI/TFOP/Science
Joshua Winn
Princeton University
Professor of Astrophysical Sciences
Co-I
TSO Vetters:
Sarah Ballard
MIT
Torres Postdoctoral Fellow
Natalie Batalha
UC Santa Cruz
Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Allyson Bieryla
SAO
TFOP
Luke Bouma
Princeton University
Graduate student
Jennifer Burt
MIT
Torres Postdoctoral Fellow
Ian Crossfield
MIT
Assistant Professor of Physics
Jason Dittmann
MIT
51 Pegasi b Postdoctoral Fellow
Diana Dragomir
MIT
Hubble Postdoctoral Fellow
TFOP: Space-based Photometry Lead
Zahra Essack
MIT
Graduate Student
Aylin García Soto
MIT
Research Support Assistant
Maximillian Günther
MIT
Torres Postdoctoral Fellow
Jingcheng Huang
MIT
Graduate Student
Akshata Krishnamurthy
MIT
Graduate Student
Charlotte Minsky
MIT
Undergraduate Student
Ismael Mireles
MIT
Research Support Associate
Prajwal Niraula
MIT
Graduate Student
Joseph Rodriguez
CFA
Future Faculty Leaders Postdoctoral Fellow
Pamela Rowden
The Open University
Research Scientist
Lizhou Sha
MIT
TESS QLP Engineer Technical Staff
Clara Sousa-Silva
MIT
Postdoctoral Associate
Steven Villanueva
MIT
Pappalardo Postdoctoral Fellow
Ian Wong
MIT
51 Pegasi b Fellow
Liang Yu
MIT
Graduate Student
Zhuchang Zhan
MIT
Graduate Student
Goran Zivanovic
MIT
Research Assistant
Graduate Student
Daniel Yaholomi
CfA
Group Vetting Lead, TFOP
Astronomer
TSO General:
Gilbert Esquerdo
SAO
TFOP
Jonathan Irwin
SAO
TIC and CTL, TOIs, TFOP,
M Dwarfs
Joshua Pepper
Lehigh University
TIC
Collaborator
Keivan Stassun
Vanderbilt University
Target Selection and Target Portal
Co-I
Guillermo Torres
SAO
TIC and CTL, TOIs, TFOP,
Validation
Doppler Tomography
Co-I
ExoFOP-TESS:
David Ciardi
NExScI
TFOP,ExoFOP-TESS
Jessie Christiansen
NExScI
ExoFOP-TESS
Cool Dwarf Catalog:
Courtney D. Dressing
UC Berkeley
Sébastien Lépine
Georgia State University
Andrew W. Mann
UNC-Chapel Hill
Philip S. Muirhead
Boston University
Bárbara Rojas-Ayala
Universidad Andrés Bello
GSFC GI:
Thomas Barclay
GSFC
GI
Patricia Boyd
GSFC
Project Scientist
Knicole Colon
GSFC
GI
Tess Jaffe
GSFC
GI
Koji Mukai
GSFC
GI
Elisa Quintana
GSFC
GI
Joshua Schlieder
GSFC
GI
POC
Chris Burke
MIT
GI Program Research Scientist
Robovetter
Tansu Daylan
MIT
John Doty
Noqsi Aerospace Ltd.
Co-I
Scott Dynes
MIT
Michael Fausnaugh
MIT
Research Scientist:
Pipeline, Data Validation, TOIs
James Francis
MIT
Gábor Fűrész
MIT
Ana Glidden
MIT
TSO Engineer
Robert Goeke
MIT
Edward Morgan
MIT
Kari Haworth
MIT
Alan Levine
MIT
Co-I
Scott McDermott
Proto-Logic
Michael Vezie
MIT
Avi Shporer
MIT
Research Scientist:
Pipeline, Data Validation, TOIs
Joel Villaseñor
MIT
Payload Scientist
Co-I
SPOC
Jon Jenkins
NASA Ames Research Center, Manager and Science Lead
Co-I
Douglas Caldwell
SETI Institute/NASA Ames Research Center, Support Scientist
Mark Rose
Leidos/NASA Ames Research Center, Software Engineer
Jeffery C. Smith
SETI Institute/NASA Ames Research Center, Data Scientist
Peter Tenenbaum
SETI Institute/NASA Ames Research Center, Lead Software Engineer
Eric Ting
NASA Ames Research Center, Lead Operations Engineer
Joseph Twicken
SETI Institute/NASA Ames Research Center, Lead Data Scientist
Bill Wohler
SETI Institute/NASA Ames Research Center
Former SPOC Members
Jennifer Campbell
Lead Operations Engineer
Roberto Carlino
KBR Wyle Services/NASA Ames Research Center, Software Developer
Aaron Dean Charon
Software Quality Assurance
Miles Cote
Lead Software Engineer
Misty Davies
NASA Ames Research Center, Software Development Manager
Forrest Girouard
Software Engineer
Todd C. Klaus
Lead Software Engineer
Jie Li
Aerospacecomputing Inc./NASA Ames Research Center, Data Scientist
Masoud Mansour-Semani
KBR Wyle Services/NASA Ames Research Center, Systems Engineer
Sean McCauliff
Lead Software Engineer
Robert L. Morris
SETI Institute/NASA Ames Research Center, Data Scientist
Dwight Sanderfer
Jacobs/NASA Ames Research Center, Software Development Manager
Co-Is:
- Gaspar Bakos: Princeton University
- Timothy Brown: Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope
- Jorgen Christensen-Dalsgaard: Aarhus University
- Mark Clampin: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
- Drake Deming: University of Maryland
- Ted Dunham: Lowell Observatory
- Matthew Holman: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
- Jon Jenkins: NASA Ames Research Center
- Garrett Jernigan: ESpace/MIT
- Lisa Kaltenegger: Cornell University – TESS Habitability – WG lead
- Gregory Laughlin: Yale University
- Douglas Lin: University of California, Santa Cruz
- Jack Lissauer: NASA Ames Research Center
- Peter McCullough: Space Telescope Science Institute
- Stephen Rinehart: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center – Project Scientist
- Dimitar Sasselov: Harvard University
- Andrew Szentgyorgyi: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
- Stephane Udry: Geneva Observatory
Collaborators:
- Jacob Bean: University of Chicago
- Francois Bouchy: Observatoire de Haute-Provence, France
- Lars Buchhave: Copenhagen University
- Nat Butler: Arizona State University
- Paul Butler: Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington
- Justin Crepp: Notre Dame
- Nathan de Lee: Vanderbilt University
- Michael Endl: University of Texas, Austin
- Jian Ge: University of Florida
- Thomas Henning: Max Planck Institut für Astronomie, Heidelberg
- Andrew Howard: University of Hawai’i
- Shigeru Ida: Tokyo Institute of Technology
- John Johnson: CFA
- Nobu Kawai: Tokyo Institute of Technology
- Hans Kjeldsen: Aarhus University
- Phillip MacQueen: University of Texas, Austin
- Timothy Morton: Princeton University
- Norio Narita: National Astronomical Observatory of Japan
- Enric Palle: Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias
- Francesco Pepe: Geneva University
- Andreas Quirrenbach: Landessternwarte Königstuhl – Universität Heidelberg
- Bun’ei Sato: Tokyo Institute of Technology
- Alessandro Sozzetti: Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino
Partners:
MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research (MKI), MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory (LL), and NASA together led the development of the TESS mission and the concept study that resulted in selection for flight. MIT is the PI institution for the mission.
NASA selected TESS as a MIDEX class mission in 2013.
MKI and LL designed, fabricated, tested and delivered the four wide-field cameras and associated electronics.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and MKI together supplied the payload data handling computer.
Orbital Sciences Corporation ATK provided the spacecraft, led the observatory integration and testing, and is responsible for the Mission Operations Center in Virginia.
As mission manager, NASA Goddard provides systems engineering, safety and mission assurance oversight, and communications and public engagement.
MKI is responsible for operating the payload during flight and for the Science Operations Center located at MIT.
NASA’s Ames Research Center is responsible for the science data processing pipeline, a component of the Science Operations Center.
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics leads the TESS Science Office, and jointly with MIT is responsible for directing its activities.
NASA Goddard also leads the Guest Investigator (GI) program for the community to pursue science investigations outside the core mission science goals of TESS.
Space Telescope Science Institute administers the mission’s data archives at the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST).