About Me
My name is Jacklyn (Jackie) Pezzato and I use she/her or
they/them pronouns.
I am a second year graduate student in Caltech's Astronomy department working in
Professor Dimitri Mawet's research group.
My specialty is high dispersion coronagraphy--a technique that combines direct imaging of
exoplanets and brown dwarfs with spectroscopy. I am currently using this technique to analyze
the cloud cover and weather patterns of giant exoplanets and brown dwarfs. I have also recently joined the instrumentation
side of this group and am getting involved with Phase II of the Keck Planet Imager and Characterizer
(KPIC), which is a module downstream of the current Keck AO system that has two channels that feed
existing Keck instruments: an IR imaging (NIRC2) channel and a fiber-fed high resolution spectroscopy
(NIRSPEC) channel.
I am also starting to be involved with Multi-fiber High-resolution NIR spectometer (MODHIS) and
Planetary Science Imager (PSI) teams for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). However, I believe that
because science is done by people, it cannot be done properly without careful
consideration of the influence
of culture, history, and politics. I encourage my collaborators to pause and reflect upon this, especially
the precedent that we are setting for military and police action against peaceful protesters in the name of
science.
I recieved a BA in Astrophysics and a BS in Engineering from Swarthmore College in 2017. I worked primarily
with David Cohen on analyzing X-ray spectroscopy of
massive stars. I also participated two NSF-funded Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) programs:
one at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory with Kenneth Mighell and another at the National Radio
Astronomy Observatory with Eric Murphy.
When I am not doing research, I enjoy powerlifting and day hikes with my dog, Sadey, who is shown posing in front of the Orion Nebula in the infrared (Credit: Caltech/JPL/NASA/2MASS/T. Megeath) in the background of this site.