Coel Hellier

I am an astrophysicist who studies "exoplanets", planets orbiting other stars in our galaxy. I led the WASP-South transit-search project, which operated an array of cameras out in the semi-desert of South Africa. We monitored the night sky, looking for tiny dips in the light-curve of stars that are caused by a planet transiting in front of the star.

In collaboration with follow-up teams from the University of Geneva and the University of Liege, WASP led to the discovery of nearly 200 gas-giant planets that transit bright stars. Lots of these are now among the best planets for detailed study, such as the characterisation of their atmospheres. Many of the exoplanet targets for the imminent James Webb Space Telescope came from the WASP-South survey. I am currently contributing to world-wide efforts to find planets using data from NASA's TESS transit-survey satellite.

After an undergraduate degree at Oxford and then a PhD from University College London I was a Hubble Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin before taking my current post at Keele University.