Moment Mentor Memento podcast ep. 9 with Ryan Cloutier

Ryan Cloutier’s helping to find the answer to The Big Question – are we alone in the universe? Are there habitable planets? And are they inhabited? Ryan, an assistant professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy, believes technological advances will lead us to an answer before he’s a professor emeritus.

Ryan’s the ninth guest on Moment Mentor Memento – it’s the Faculty of Science’s 14-episode podcast series hosted and produced by journalist in residence Jeff Goodes.

Ryan talks about his research, a defining moment from his career (being hired by McMaster and returning to Hamilton), a mentor who had an outsized influence and a memento from his office.

Ryan’s research focuses on detecting and characterizing the galaxy’s most common planets around its most common stars (i.e. M dwarfs). These exoplanets, ranging in size between Earth and Neptune, lack a close analog in our solar system for detailed study. Ryan uses a variety of observational techniques to study these super-Earths and sub-Neptunes from many light years away, to contribute to our understanding of how these planets form and evolve. This involves investigating the occurrence rates of these planets, their bulk and atmospheric compositions, as well as many of the physical phenomena exhibited by their host stars that drive their evolution.

Listen to Ryan’s episode on:

Simplecast

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Listen to other Moment Mentor Memento podcast episodes with:

• Pat Clancy
• Dylan Kobsar
• Abel Chikanda
• Lea Ravensbergen
• Blaise Bourdin
• Rebecca Doyle
• Emily Choy
• Maureen MacDonald

Subscribe to Mentor Memento Moment for future episodes with:

• Anthony Chibba
• Pratheepa Jeganathan
• Alex Hall
• Katrian Choe, and
• Gabriel Xiao