Boston Chapter of the IEEE Photonics Society

Abstract:  The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is a NASA mission that launched nearly a year ago on April 18, 2018. Its goal is to search the sky and identify exoplanets around nearby bright stars. One year into its baseline two year mission, TESS is well on its way toward achieving its exoplanet discovery goals. This talk will give an overview of the TESS mission and exoplanet detection method, as well as discuss some key features of the instrument design.

Biography:  Kris is currently the program manager for the NASA TROPICS (Time Resolved Observation of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats) Program. Previously she was the deputy program manager for the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission. For the past 20+ years, Kris has been involved in the design, assembly, test, and verification of ground, airborne, and space-based electro-optical systems with operational ranges from the UV to IR. Prior to her involvement with TROPICS and TESS, she worked on several NASA programs including Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), Ozone Mapping Profiler Suite (OMPS), and Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM).

Kris holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a master’s degree in physics from Tufts University.