Associate Astronomer, STScI
Pueyo earned his doctorate from Princeton University in 2008 and conducted his post-doctoral work as a NASA Fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California and as a Sagan Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University. Pueyo joined STScI in 2013 as an astronomer after spending three years as a Sagan Fellow at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. His duties at STScI include optimizing the extrasolar-planet imaging capabilities of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), scheduled to launch in late 2019. He is also part of a team that is working on the science goals for another future NASA missions: the Wide Field Infrared Space Telescope (WFIRST) and a member of the Science and Technology Definition Team for the Large Ultraviolet Optical and Infrared telescope, a future observatory that will identify Earth-sized planets and assess their habitability. His research focuses on imaging faint planets around nearby stars. He invented an optical system for future NASA missions that will allow astronomers to take images of other planetary systems and has pioneered advanced data analysis methods that are now standard tools used to study extrasolar planets. He has co-authored over 100 publications in peer review journals and 100 conference proceedings. He was named Maryland 2016 Outstanding Young Scientist.