UCI Professor Aomawa Shields selected to receive 3-year grant from NASA Habitable Worlds Program

The NASA Habitable Worlds Program has selected the proposal, “The effect of salt- and land-albedo feedback on the climate and habitability of M-dwarf planets” (PI Aomawa Shields, UC Irvine) for funding beginning in fiscal year 2017.

With this funding, covering fiscal years 2017-2020, Shields, Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California Irvine, will lead a research team of postdoctoral scholars, graduate students, and undergraduate students in the exploration of the radiative effects on climate and habitability of a wide range of surface types possible on planets orbiting small, cool, red, M-dwarf stars. Shields’ group will apply these results to create the most accurate assessments of the likelihood of the most exciting potentially habitable planets to actually possess the conditions necessary for life.

Original Story: https://news.uci.edu/2017/10/23/uci-astronomer-wins-nasa-grant-to-study-exoplanets/