Professor Courtney Dressing

Education

• Ph.D. Harvard University (2015, Astronomy & Astrophysics)
• Thesis: "The Prevalence and Compositions of Small Planets"
• Advisor: David Charbonneau
• A.M. Harvard University (2012, Astronomy & Astrophysics)
• A.B. Princeton University (2010, Astrophysical Sciences summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi)

Appointments

• Assistant Professor, Department of Astronomy, University of California at Berkeley (2017 - present)
• NASA Sagan Fellow, Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology (2015 - 2017)
• Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Astronomy, Harvard University (Summer 2015)

Honors & Awards

• 2019 Hellman Fellow, Hellman Family Faculty Fund
• 2019 Sloan Research Fellow, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
• 2019 NASA Group Achievement Award to the LUVOIR Science & Technology Definition Team
• 2018 Scialog Fellow, Research Corporation for Science Advancement & Heising-Simons Foundation
• 2015 Kavli Fellow
• 2015 Fireman Award for PhD Thesis in Astronomy, Harvard University
• 2015 NASA Sagan Fellowship
• 2012 & 2011 Harvard University Certificate of Distinction in Teaching
• 2010 - 2015 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship
• 2010 James Mills Peirce Fellowship, Astronomy Department, Harvard University
• 2017 Princeton Manfred Pyka Memorial Prize in Physics

Advising & Mentorship

• Postdoctoral Fellows: Marta Bryan (51 Peg b Fellow at UCB; September 2018 - present)
• Graduate Students: Jordan Fleming (2018 - present), Steven Giacalone (2017 - present), Andrew Mayo (2018 - present), Ellianna Schwab Abrahams (2018 - present), Charles Fortenbach (2017 - present; earned MA in Physics from SFSU in Dec. 2018 for his thesis "A Framework for Optimizing Exoplanet Targets for JWST"
• Undergraduate Students: Elliot Cantor (2017 - present), Shashank Dholakia (2018 - present), Shishir Dholakia (2018 - present), Makena Fetzer (2017 - present), Lauren Koch (2017 - present), Arjun Savel (2017 - present), Alexander Ye (2017 - 2019), Girish Duvvuri (Caltech SURF 2016; co-advised with Heather Knutson), Hieu Nguyen (2017 - 2018)
• Mentorship Programs: Cal-Bridge North Mentor (2018 - present), Women Mentoring Women Program at Caltech (2015 - 2017), Harvard Astronomy Graduate Student Peer Mentorship Program (2012 - 2014), Women in Science, Technology, & Engineering at Harvard Mentorship Program (2010 - 2015)

Classroom Experience & Training

• 2019, 2018: Instructor, C12: The Planets (undergraduate course for non-majors, UCB
• 2018, 2017: Instructor, C249: Planetary Astrophysics (graduate course, UCB
• 2012, 2011: Teaching Fellow, Astronomy 16 (introductory astronomy for majors, Harvard)

Presentations (selected)

• Invited Colloquia: Sonoma State University (2019); Yale University (2019); Stanford University (2019); University of Texas at Austin (2019); San Francisco State University (2018); The Ohio State University (2018); JPL (Astrophysics & Heliophysics/Space Physics Colloquium 2018); City College of San Francisco (2018); NRC-Herzberg, Victoria, Canada (2017); University of British Columbia (2017); Steward Observatory/NOAO Joint Colloquium (2017); Cornell University (2016); University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2016); Carnegie Observatories (2016); California State University Los Angeles (2016); University of California, Santa Cruz (2016); University of California, Berkeley (2016); University of California, Los Angeles (2015); University of California, San Diego (2015)
• Invited Seminars: Princeton University (Exoplanets Seminar, 2015); University of Hawaii (2015); University of Toronto (CITA Seminar, 2015); Harvard University (Origins of Life Initiative Talk, 2014); Geneva Observatory (2013)
• Invited Conference Talks (33 Total): Sagan Exoplanet Summer Workshop, Pasadena, CA (2019); Planet-Star Connections in the Era of TESS and Gaia (2019), Santa Barbara, CA; The Space Astrophysics Landscape for the 2020s and Beyond, Potomac, MD (2019); Kepler & K2 Science Conference V, Glendale, CA (2019); American Astronomical Society Meeting #233, Seattle, WA (multiple talks, 2019); A Roadmap for Universal Life, Leiden, NL (2018); Annual Meeting of the Division for Planetary Sciences, Knoxville, TN (2018); Keck Science Meeting, Pasadena, CA (2018)
• Contributed Conference Talks (24 Total): Sagan Symposium (2018), American Astronomical Society Meeting #231, Washington, D.C. (2018); Transiting Exoplanets, Keele University, UK (2017); Kepler & K2 Science Conference IV, Moffett Field, CA (2017); Exoclimes, Squamish, Canada (2016); Exoplanets 1, Davos, Switzerland (2016)
• Invited Public Talks (13 Total): Lick Observatory, Mt. Hamilton (2019, 2018; two presentations each night); SETI Talk, Menlo Park, CA 92109); The Ohio State Astronomy & Astrophysics Public Lecture Series, Columbus, OH (2018); California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, CA (2018; Benjamin Dean Astronomy Lecture); Berkeley, CA (Science@Cal, 2017); Astronomy on Tap, Pasadena, CA (2017); Astronomy on Tap, Evanson, IL, (2016); National Air & Space Museum, Washington, D.C. (2013; Smithsonian's Stars Lecture Series); Starfest, Paxton, MA (2013)

Professional Activities & Service (Selected)

• 2019 - present: Member, Astro2020 Decadal Survey Panel on Exoplanets, Astrobiology & the Solar System
• 2016 - present: Member, Large UV/Optical/near-Infrared Surveyor Science & Technology Definition Team
• 2018 - present: Member, Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) Follow-Up Working Group
• 2015 - present Member, TESS Target Selection Working Group
• 2015 - present: Member, TESS M Dwarf Target Selection Subgroup
• 2013 - present: Member, HARPS-N Science Team
• 2012 - present: Referee for AJ, ApJ, ApJL, A&A, & MNRAS
• 2009 - present: Member, American Astronomical Society, Division of Planetary Sciences
• 2018 - present: Member, Faculty Advisory Committee to the Lawrence Hall of Science
• 2017 - present: Organizing Committee Member, Bay Area Exoplanet Meeting
• 2019 - present: Scientific Organizing Committee Member, Rocky Planets in the Era of JWST
• 2019 - present: Scientific Organizing Committee Member, Celebrating the Legacy of the Spitzer Space Telescope
• 2018 - 2019: Scientific Organizing Committee Member, TESS Science Conference
• 2018 - 2019: Scientific Organizing Committee Member, Extreme Solar Systems IV
• 2018 - 2019: Scientific Organizing Committee Member, New Horizons in Planetary Systems
• 2017 - 2018: Scientific Organizing Committee Member, Sagan Summer Workshop
• Various Years: Proposal reviewer for NASA & Time Allocation Committee member for assorted ground-based facilities

Observing Experience (* = as PI)

• Keck 10-m HIRES* (precise radial velocity spectrograph), NIRC2* (high-resolution imaging)
• Subaru 8.2-m HiCIAO (high-resolution imaging)
• MMT 6.5-m ARIES (high-resolution imaging)
• Hale 5-m PHARO (high-resolution imaging), TripleSpec* (single-object near-infrared spectroscopy)
• TNG 3.6-m HARPS-N (precise radial velocity spectrograph)
• Shane 3-m ShARCS* (high-resolution imaging with laser guide star adaptive optics)
• IRTF 3-m SpeX* (single-object near-infrared spectroscopy)
• APF 2.4-m Levy* (precise radial velocity spectrograph)