MIT welcomes 51 Pegasi b Fellow Jess Speedie, who combines observational data and simulations to detect newborn worlds and study the processes of planet formation. She will work with Richard Teague in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences.
The MIT School of Science welcomes Jess Speedie, one of eight recipients of the 2025 51 Pegasi b Fellowship. The announcement was made March 27 by the Heising-Simons Foundation. The 51 Pegasi b Fellowship, named after the first exoplanet discovered orbiting a sun-like star, was established in 2017 to provide postdocs with the opportunity to conduct theoretical, observational, and experimental research in planetary astronomy. Speedie, who expects to complete her PhD in astronomy at the University of Victoria, Canada, this summer, will be hosted by the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS). She will be mentored by Kerr-McGee Career Development Professor Richard Teague as she uses a combination of observational data and simulations to study the birth of planets and the processes of planetary formation. "The planetary environment is where all the good stuff collects … it has the greatest potential for the most interesting things in the universe to happen, such as the origin of life," she says. "Planets, for me, are where the stories happen." Speedie's work has focused on…