Fermilab

Jason Steffen is currently the Brinson Postdoctoral Fellow at the Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics. He received a B.S. in physics and mathematics from Weber State University in Ogden, Utah and his Ph.D. in physics at the University of Washington in Seattle. His work for the Kepler mission stems from his dissertation research on identifying unseen planets by the effects that they have on the orbits of known, transiting planets. His primary responsibility is to look for variations in the orbital periods (as measured by the transit times) of the planets that Kepler discovers in order to identify any additional, unseen planets that might be present. These secondary discoveries, or the lack thereof, will help us understand how planets and planetary systems form and evolve. In addition to his work in extrasolar planets, he is active in the fields of experimental gravitation and the detection of axions and axion-like particles, including the first laboratory test of a model for dark energy.