Jacob H. Hamer

I’m Jacob, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University. My research has used data from the Gaia satellite to reveal new insights into the evolution of exoplanet systems. Using data from Gaia, we can determine the velocities of stars in the Milky Way. In turn, we can use these velocities to infer the relative age of different populations of stars. I use these relative ages to study how exoplanet systems evolve due to tidal interactions between stars and planets. You can access my publications on ADS.

I’m passionate about science communication, especially observatory-based outreach and interactive data visualizations. While I was Observatory Fellow for the Maryland Space Grant Consortium, I authored several interactive blog posts on ObservableHQ. I also mentored a JHU undergraduate, and together we produced a planetarium show on the transit and doppler methods for detecting exoplanets, available on YouTube.