Kerri Cahoy

Dr. Kerri Cahoy is an associate professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT and leads the MIT Space Telecommunications, Astronomy, and Radiation (STAR) Lab. She develops nanosatellite laser communication systems and weather sensors, such as the Microsized Microwave Atmospheric Satellite (MicroMAS) and the Microwave Radiometer Technology Acceleration (MiRaTA) mission. Cahoy also supports space telescope missions, such as the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) to directly image exoplanets, and is developing a 6U CubeSat to test MEMS deformable mirror technology for high contrast coronagraph wavefront control systems. STAR Lab research also focuses on understanding space weather, identifying when spacecraft are affected by anomalies due to interactions with energetic particles, and improving their performance and reliability, including performing radiation testing on commercial CubeSat components. Dr. Cahoy previously worked on spacecraft radio systems for space weather and planetary atmospheric sensing, a method called radio occultation. Her doctoral research was on radio occultation studies of the upper atmosphere of Mars using the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, and on the MIT Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory lunar mission team at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

Education

• Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, 2008
• M.S., Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, 2002
• B.S., Electrical Engineering (cum laude), Cornell University, 2000

Publications

Lai, S. T. and Cahoy, K. (2015) Trapped Photoelectrons During Spacecraft Charging in SunlightIeee Transactions on Plasma Science, vol. 43, no. 9, pp. 2856-2860, doi: 10.1109/tps.2015.2453370

Lohmeyer, W. and Carlton, A. and Wong, F. and Bodeau, M. and Kennedy, A. and Cahoy, K. (2015) Response of geostationary communications satellite solid-state power amplifiers to high-energy electron fluence Space Weather-the International Journal of Research and Applications, vol. 13, no. 5, pp. 298-315, doi: 10.1002/2014sw001147

Morley, C. V. and Fortney, J. J. and Marley, M. S. and Zahnle, K. and Line, M. and Kempton, E. and Lewis, N. and Cahoy, K. (2015) THERMAL EMISSION AND REFLECTED LIGHT SPECTRA OF SUPER EARTHS WITH FLAT TRANSMISSION SPECTRA Astrophysical Journal, vol. 815, no. 2, doi: 10.1088/0004-637x/815/2/110

Webber, M. W. and Lewis, N. K. and Marley, M. and Morley, C. and Fortney, J. J. and Cahoy, K. (2015) EFFECT OF LONGITUDE-DEPENDENT CLOUD COVERAGE ON EXOPLANET VISIBLE WAVELENGTH REFLECTED-LIGHT PHASE CURVES Astrophysical Journal, vol. 804, no. 2, doi: 10.1088/0004-637x/804/2/94

Awards

NSF New Investigator Program in Earth Science (2014) | AFOSR Young Investigator Program Award (2013) | MIT Undergraduate Research Program Mentor Award, 2012-2013 (2013) | NSF ADVANCE workshop attendee grant, Northeastern University (2009) | AAS Women in Astronomy workshop early-‐career attendee grant, NASA GSFC (2009) | Cornell University Co-op Mentor of the Year Award at Space Systems Loral (2008) | Winifred Hill Boyd Scholarship, Kappa Delta (2006) | Stanford University GSPB Award for Graduate Community Service (2003) | Cornell University William S. Einwechter Award in Electrical Engineering (2000)