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About

Sam Thompson is a leading figure in the search for habitable exoplanets, specializing in the detection and characterization of terrestrial worlds orbiting ultracool dwarf stars. Their most significant contribution is the conception and realization of the SPECULOOS project, a network of robotic 1m-class telescopes designed to hunt for Earth-sized planets transiting the nearest, faintest stars in the solar neighborhood. The foundational paper for this survey, published in 2018, has already garnered 76 citations, underscoring its importance in setting the stage for a new era of ground-based transit detection. By targeting ultracool dwarfs bright enough in the infrared for atmospheric follow-up, Thompson’s work directly bridges the gap between discovery and characterization—a critical step toward finding potentially habitable worlds. This strategic focus not only complements space missions like TESS but also ensures that the most promising targets for future observatories, such as the James Webb Space Telescope, are identified. Thompson’s vision and leadership in robotic telescope networks continue to shape the frontier of exoplanet science.