Tom Esposito
Chief Scientific Officer at SETI Institute
Richmond, California, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolTom Esposito is a planetary astronomer and science leader with eight years of hands-on experience in exoplanet and circumstellar disk discovery, high-contrast imaging, and time-series analysis. He splits his time between UC Berkeley (as an assistant researcher on GPIES) and roles leading citizen-science and data efforts at Unistellar and SkyMapper, where he is building decentralized networks for collaborative observation and analysis. Tom combines observational work with Keck, Hubble, and Gemini data, with expertise in PSF-subtraction, adaptive optics, and multidimensional disk modeling to probe planet formation and system architectures. He also leads the Unistellar eVscope transit pipeline, turning consumer-telescope networks into precision ephemeris and occultation science—an unusual blend of professional observatory and citizen-science practice. His background includes instrument design and upgrades (infrared imagers and AO systems) and developing advanced image-processing and data-reduction tools that accelerate follow-up by large facilities. Based in Richmond, CA, he brings a rare mix of telescope operations, algorithm development, and community-driven science leadership.
9 years of coding experience
1 year of employment as a software developer
B.S., Physics, Italian, B.S., Physics, Italian at Georgetown UniversityDoctor of Philosophy (PhD), Astronomy, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Astronomy at University of California, Los Angeles
Italian, Spanish
Github Skills (19)
ifs9
planet9
idl9
reduction8
astronomy7
pipeline5
markov-chain4
menu4
installer3
monte-carlo3
linux2
windows2
buildroot2
python2
gemini2
Programming languages (5)
Github contributions (5)
tmesposito/diskmc
Aug 2018 - Feb 2021
A Python framework for running a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) with radiative transfer models of circumstellar disks produced by the MCFOST code.
Contributions:2 PRs, 41 pushes, 2 branches in 2 years 5 months
markov-chainmcmcmonte-carlopython
tmesposito/gpi_pol
Sep 2019 - Nov 2020
Contributions:17 pushes, 2 branches in 1 year 1 month
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