Ian Crossfield

Ian J. M. Crossfield is an astronomer and associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Kansas. His research focuses on the discovery and characterization of nearby planetary systems, including studies of exoplanet atmospheres, exoplanet detection, and brown dwarf atmospheres.

Crossfield was lead author of a 2014 Nature paper reporting a two-dimensional cloud map of the nearby brown dwarf Luhman 16B, produced using observations from the Very Large Telescope. He also led a 2016 study of the first five fields observed by the K2 mission, reporting 197 planet candidates and 104 validated exoplanets.

Education and career

Crossfield received a B.S. in physics from the University of California, Irvine in 2004, an M.S. in astronomy from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2009, and a Ph.D. in astronomy from UCLA in 2012.

From 2017 to 2020, Crossfield was an assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He joined the University of Kansas in 2020, where he leads the KU ExoLab, a research group focused on nearby planetary systems.

Crossfield authored the 2015 review article "Observations of Exoplanet Atmospheres" in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, which summarized observational techniques and results in the characterization of exoplanet atmospheres.

Awards and service

NASA selected Crossfield as a 2014 Carl Sagan Fellow for a project titled "Spectroscopy and Cartography of Cool Extrasolar Atmospheres".

Crossfield served on the Astro2020 Panel on Exoplanets, Astrobiology, and the Solar System for the National Academies' decadal survey process.

Selected publications