Dr. Nicola Astudillo

Nicola Astudillo-Defru studied at Universidad de Chile (BSc y MSc) and Université Grenoble Alpes (France), from where he obtained his PhD. He joined the Astronomy Department as a post-doctoral fellow in March 2018.

His research topic is on extra-solar planets (or exoplanets), from the detection of these exo-worlds to the characterization of the impact of stellar activity on data. The last being a key point when searching for the less massive rocky planets, as the Earth. In particular, Nicola Astudillo-Defru search for exoplanets orbiting the lowest mass stars, called red dwarfs.

The used technique for his research is the radial velocity or Doppler effect, for that he mainly uses the HARPS spectrograph installed at La Silla observatory. He collaborates with transit surveys, like Mearth or ExTrA, to allow the estimation of the bulk composition (the density) of exoplanets or study their atmosphere through transmission spectroscopy.

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• e-mail: nicolaastudillo@udec.cl