The California Planet Search (CPS) is a collaboration among astronomers who use the HIRES spectrometer at the W. M. Keck Observatory and other Doppler spectrometers.

CPS, and its predecessor the California-Carnegie Planet Search (CCPS), are responsible for many of the landmark discoveries in the field of extrasolar planets.  These studies include the discovery of abundant low-mass planets (the Eta-Earth Survey), the first mass measurement of an Earth-size planet (Kepler-78b), the discovery of a transition from gas-dominated to rocky planets (the Kepler follow-up program), the discovery of a gap in the planet distribution (the California-Kepler Survey), and measurements of the distribution of giant planets (the California Legacy Survey).

Active CPS Team Members (current members are listed below) are responsible for executing HIRES observations on Keck nights assigned to principal investigators participating in CPS.  Team Members are expert in the use of HIRES and meet weekly to discuss observing strategies, improvements to the data reduction, and other optimizations.  Many core Team Members are doing PhD dissertation projects or postdoctoral projects working closely with other CPS Team Members.  Prior CPS team members include Geoff Marcy, whose work with CPS ceased in 2015.  We acknowledge the harm caused by Marcy to women in the astronomical community.

CPS Participating Scientists (a recent list is below) collaborate with the core CPS team by contributing their Keck nights to the ad hoc queue and in return they receive access to cadence observations executed by CPS Team members, high quality data products (notably radial velocities), and collaboration with the CPS team.  Details about the HIRES wavelength solution are available here.

CPS in an informal collaboration led by Andrew Howard (Caltech) with observing assignments and data reduction lead by Howard Isaacson (UC Berkeley).  CPS members collaborate on projects large and small.  To propose for new projects with CPS as a Participating Scientist, please contact Andrew Howard.

CPS Team Members

  • Prof. Andrew Howard (Caltech; CPS leader)
  • Howard Isaacson (UC Berkeley; CPS observing and data reduction leader)
  • Dr. Erik Petigura (Caltech)
  • Dr. BJ Fulton (NExScI)
  • Dr. Lauren Weiss (Univ. of Hawaii)
  • Dr. Lea Hirsch (Stanford)
  • Dr. Arpita Roy (STScI)
  • Dr. Sean Mills (Caltech)
  • Dr. Fei Dai (Caltech)
  • Dr. Ashley Baker (Caltech)
  • Aida Behmard (Caltech)
  • Lee Rosenthal (Caltech)
  • Dr. Sam Grunblatt (Univ. of Hawaii)
  • Ashley Chontos (Univ. of Hawaii)
  • Sarah Blunt (Harvard)
  • Prof. Ian Crossfield (MIT)

CPS Participating Scientists (*)

  • Prof. Eric Agol (Washington)
  • Prof. Gaspar Bakos (Princeton)
  • Prof. Gibor Basri (UC Berkeley)
  • Prof. Fabienne Bastien (Penn State)
  • Prof. Natalie Batalha (UC Santa Cruz)
  • Harriet Brettle (Caltech)
  • Dr. John Brewer (Yale)
  • Prof. Mike Brown (Caltech)
  • Dr. David Ciardi (NExScI)
  • Prof. Justin Crepp (Notre Dame)
  • Dr. Katherine de Kleer (Caltech)
  • Prof. Courtney Dressing (UC Berkeley)
  • Prof. Debra Fischer (Yale)
  • Prof. Jonathan Fortney (UC Santa Cruz)
  • Prof. Jim Fuller (Caltech)
  • Prof. Brad Hansen (UCLA)
  • Dr. Joel Hartman (Princeton)
  • Prof. Lynne Hillenbrand (Caltech)
  • Prof. Dan Huber (Univ. of Hawaii)
  • Prof. Stephen Kane (UC Riverside)
  • Prof. Heather Knutson (Caltech)
  • Prof. Stephen Kane (UC Riverside)
  • Prof. Quinn Konopacky (UC San Diego)
  • Dr. Molly Kosiarek (UC Santa Cruz)
  • Alan Reyes (Penn State)
  • Prof. Paul Robertson (UC Irvine)
  • Dr. Avi Shporer (MIT)
  • Dr. Sharon Wang (Carnegie)
  • Dr. Songhu Wang (Princeton)
  • Prof. Josh Winn (Princeton)
  • Prof. Jason Wright (Penn State)

* – from the past few years