Julien deWit, PhD

AURELIA FELLOW

Julien’s primary interest and expertise lie where Math, Science, and Engineering are brought together to make sense of newly-accessible pieces of reality, ideally in order to improve the Human condition. Trained as an aerospace engineer (B.Eng. ULiege 2008, M.Res. ISAE 2010, M.Sc. SUPAERO 2010, M.Sc. ULiege 2011), he transitioned to the field of exoplanetary sciences captivated by the prospect of contributing to finding life around other worlds than Earth (Ph.D. MIT 2014).

The Disruptive Planets Group he leads at MIT has for mission to discovering and studying new worlds to consolidate our understanding of planets and habitats. For his contributions to the field of astronomy, Julien was notably named Innovator of the Year 2017 Belgium and Pioneer of the Year 2017 Europe by MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35.