Kerri Cahoy

Kerri Cahoy is an associate professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT and leads the MIT Space Telecommunications, Astronomy, and Radiation (STAR) Lab. She develops nanosatellite laser communication systems and weather sensors, such as the Microsized Microwave Atmospheric Satellite (MicroMAS) and the Microwave Radiometer Technology Acceleration (MiRaTA) mission. Cahoy also supports space telescope missions, such as the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) to directly image exoplanets, and is developing a 6U CubeSat to test MEMS deformable mirror technology for high contrast coronagraph wavefront control systems. STAR Lab research also focuses on understanding space weather, identifying when spacecraft are affected by anomalies due to interactions with energetic particles, and improving their performance and reliability, including performing radiation testing on commercial CubeSat components. Cahoy previously worked on spacecraft radio systems for space weather and planetary atmospheric sensing, a method called radio occultation. Her doctoral research was on radio occultation studies of the upper atmosphere of Mars using the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, and on the MIT Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory lunar mission team at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.