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About

Shude Mao is a leading astrophysicist whose pioneering work in gravitational microlensing has revolutionized the search for exoplanets and deepened our understanding of dark matter and large-scale structure. His most celebrated contribution is the discovery of OGLE 2005-BLG-390Lb, the first cool rocky/icy exoplanet found via microlensing, which demonstrated the technique's unrivaled sensitivity to planets below 10 Earth masses—a milestone with 79 citations. Mao also advanced real-time anomaly detection through the ARTEMiS system, enabling the first automated detection of a weak microlensing anomaly (OGLE-2008-BLG-510), and developed RoboTAP, a prioritization tool for robotic follow-up observations. Currently, he is spearheading the MUltiplexed Survey Telescope (MUST), a 6.5-meter facility capable of observing 20,000 targets simultaneously, set to conduct the first Stage-V spectroscopic surveys for cosmology. With over 25,000 total citations, Mao’s work bridges exoplanet science and cosmology, cementing his legacy as a visionary in time-domain astronomy and survey instrumentation.