Exoplanet Dynamics: What We Know from Kepler

Eric Agol earned a Physics Ph.D. here at UCSB in 1997 working with Omer Blaes. After studying black holes and gravitational lensing during postdocs at Johns Hopkins and Caltech, he joined the University of Washington in 2003 and began working in the nascent field of extrasolar planets. His research, straddling observation and theory, aims to develop new approaches to studying planets orbiting other stars. He has made a number of discoveries in this area, including several previously unknown, unique planets. Could planet Agol be in humanity's future? He lives in Edmonds, Washington on Puget Sound with his wife and two boys, and enjoys biking, crosswords, and basketball.