Professor Amaury Triaud MPhys, PhD, FRAS

Professor Amaury Triaud

School of Physics and Astronomy
Professor of Exoplanetology
Birmingham Fellow

Contact details

Address
School of Physics & Astronomy
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

A regular visitor to observatories in the Atacama desert, Professor Amaury Triaud is the discoverer of over one hundred exoplanet planets (planets which orbit stars other than the Sun). His research concentrates on extracting empirical evidence about the physical processes that lead to the formation and evolution of planets. His main attention is on discovering and investigating planetary systems that are different to our own, either by the type of planets that compose those systems, by their architectures, or because of the type of star(s) they orbit.

Amaury’s current attention focuses on circumbinary planets (planets with two suns), and on identifying planets that have sizes and temperatures similar to Earth, and that orbit around the smallest stars in our Galaxy. As part of the SPECULOOS collaboration, Amaury is a co-discoverer of the TRAPPIST-1 system, whose planets are most optimal in the search for evidence of biology beyond our Solar system.

An avid communicator, Amaury enthusiastically describes recent advances in Astronomy to the public, in settings such as science festivals, astronomical associations, science museums, schools, and corporations. He reaches audiences locally, nationally, and internationally and is the editor of the TRAPPIST-1 website. Amaury searches for new means of engaging the public, and improving science interest and science literacy in the civil society.

He is involved is active in enhancing public engagement, interest, understanding and awareness of physics through outreach.

Amaury is interested in featuring recent scientific concepts or discoveries in cultural products such as films, novels, illustrations and graphic novels; he is fascinated by the link between scientific investigations and art. He regularly comments on recent discoveries in the written press, on radio and on television.

Qualifications

  • PhD, Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Geneva, 2011
  • MPhys (Hons), Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of St Andrews, 2007

Biography

Meet the 2020 Blavatnik Awards UK Physical Sciences & Engineering Honorees

Amaury’s path is typical of a modern European researcher. Born and schooled in France, he then decided to pursue his undergraduate studies at the University of St Andrew's in Scotland graduating in 2007 with a Masters of Physics, 1st class. His summers were spent in France (2003-2004), Germany (2005) and Switzerland (2006) doing research internships that nurtured his scientific career and produced his first papers. He moved to Geneva in 2007 for a four year PhD program that was completed in August 2011. The European Astronomical Association awarded him the MERAC prize for best PhD thesis on observational astronomy, defended in Europe in 2011, 2012, and 2013.

He then held research fellowships at MIT, at the University of Toronto, and at the University of Cambridge, before joining the University of Birmingham in 2017 as a Birmingham Fellow and lecturer. Having already shown a wide range of research interest during this thesis at the University of Geneva, he has since continued to expand his expertise beyond his original field of exoplanets. Amaury’s research has been highlighted in numerous press releases, relayed by major news outlets worldwide.

In 2018 he received funding through a Starting Grant by the European Research Council to investigate circumbinary exoplanets. In 2020, the Royal Astronomical Society awarded him the Fowler award for early achievements in Astronomy, and the same year, Amaury was selected as a Finalist to the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in the UK. In 2020, he was appointed as a Professor of Exoplanetology. 

To find out more information about Amaury's work, see below:

Amaurytriaud
Trappist-1

Teaching

  • Y2 Physics Lab
  • Y4 Project Supervision
  • Y3/Y4 Asteroseismology & Exoplanets

Postgraduate supervision

  • Supervision of research PhDs in exoplanets, and binary stars

Research

  • Exoplanets observations
  • Exoplanets formation
  • Exoplanet orbital evolution
  • Planetary dynamics
  • Exoplanetary atmospheres
  • Time domain astronomy
  • Binary stars

Other activities

  • Script for graphic novel TRAPPIST-1, what is it?, illustrated by Lepithec (2017)
  • Editor for TRAPPIST-1 website (2016-present)
  • Consultant for the Sci-fi trilogy QuanTika, by Laurence Suhner (ed. Atalante) (2011-2015)
  • Multiple appearances in BBC, CBC, CTV news and TSR shows - The Sky at Night (BBC).

Publications

For an up-to-date list of refereed publications, visit here.

  • Triaud, A.H.M.J. et al. (2020), An eclipsing substellar binary in a young triple system discovered by SPECULOOS, Nature Astronomy 43.

  • Zanazzi, J.J. and Triaud, A.H.M.J. (2019), The ability of significant tidal stress to initiate plate tectonics, Icarus 325, 55

  • Martin, D.V., Triaud, A.H.M.J. et al. (2019), The BEBOP radial-velocity survey for circumbinary planets. I. Eight years of CORALIE observations of 47 single-line eclipsing binaries and abundance constraints on the masses of circumbinary planets.

  • Triaud, A.H.M.J. (2018), The Rossiter-McLaughlin effect in Exoplanet Research, in Handbook of Exoplanets, Springer, eds. H. Deeg, and J.A. Belmonte
  • Triaud, A. and Gillon, M. (2017), Dwarf planetary systems will transform the hunt for alien life [online], Aeon Magazine,[accessed 18-Sep-2017]
  • Triaud, A.H.M.J. et al. (2017), Peculiar architectures for the WASP-53 and WASP-81 planet-hosting systems, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 467, 1714
  • Gillon, M., Triaud, A.H.M.J. et al. (2017), Seven temperate terrestrial planets around the nearby ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, Nature 542, 456
  • Triaud, A.H.M.J. (2016), Exoplanets: Migration of giants, Nature 537, 496
  • Martin, D.V. and Triaud, A.H.M.J. (2014), Planets transiting non-eclipsing binaries, Astronomy & Astrophysics 570, 91

Expertise

Exoplanets in general. The discovery of planets via the transit and Doppler (radial velocity) methods, planet properties for gas giants, sub-Neptunes and Super Earths, rocky worlds. Atmospheres of exoplanets. Habitability of exoplanets. Circumbinary planets (planets with two stars instead of one). Planets orbiting very low mass stars. TRAPPIST-1. Binary stars, low mass stars.

Languages and other information

English, French and Spanish.

Media experience

Regularly asked to comment recent exoplanet discoveries in national and international media, in the written press, but also on radio and television. Recent appearances on the BBC, including The Sky at Night.

Related media experts

Alternative contact number available for this expert: contact the press office