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February 2 - 6, 2026 • Caltech, Pasadena, CA

Agenda

We are organizing a lab tour of JPL on Wednesday, February 4th, 2026 at 2pm. We will return to Pasadena at 5pm. Please indicate your interest in the tour by completing this form no later than Friday, January 9th, 2026. This will allow us to recruit the necessary tour guides. If you are a JPL employee interested in serving as a tour guide, please reach out to spiritoflyot6@ipac.caltech.edu. Unforunately, we cannot accomodate folks from NASA designated countries.

We have reserved several rooms on the Caltech campus for conversation and collaboration during the Spirit of Lyot meeting. Please complete this form if you and your group would like to utilize one or more of these rooms. Rooms will be reserved on a first come, first serve basis.

Monday 2025 February 02
Time  
08:00-09:00 Doors Open
  JWST Science and Instrumentation
09:00-09:45
Marshall Perrin (STScI)
High Contrast Imaging and Spectroscopy with JWST: Methods, Performances, and Lessons for the Future
09:45-10:00 Aarynn Carter (STScI) Emerging Demographics of Cold Sub-Jupiters from JWST High-Contrast Imaging Surveys
10:00-10:15 James Mang (UT Austin) Jupiter Analogs in Sight: Modeling the Coldest Directly-Imaged Atmospheres Observed with JWST
10:15-10:45
Coffee Break
10:45-11:00 Elisabeth Matthews (MPIA) Imaging cold exoplanets with JWST: a case study of Eps Ind Ab
11:00-11:15 Alexander Bogdan Madurowicz (STScI) Direct spectroscopy of cool exoplanets and brown dwarfs with JWST / NIRSpec
11:15-11:30 Jerry Xuan (UCLA) Metal enrichment in both volatile (C, O, N) and refractory (S) elements for giant planets in HR 8799 and AF Lep
11:30-11:45 Arthur Daniel Adams (University of Virginia) Mapping Exoplanets and Brown Dwarfs across Space and Time
11:45-12:00 Jingwen Zhang (UCSB) Finding the great sculptors: A Renaissance in Planet Disk Dynamics
12:00-13:00
Lunch (On Your Own)
13:00-14:00
Poster Session 1
14:00-14:45
Christine Chen (STScI)
Witnessing the Formation and Evolution of Planetary Systems
14:45-15:00 Andras Gaspar (University of Arizona) Results from the JWST NIRCam and MIRI GTO Debris Disks programs
15:00-15:15 Katie Crotts (STScI) Direct imaging and spectroscopy of the Beta Pictoris disk structure with JWST/MIRI
15:15-15:45
Coffee Break
15:45-16:00 Claire Finley (UT Austin) Accretion and Circumplanetary Disk Properties of a Wide Orbit Planet with HST and JWST
16:00-16:15 Ya Lin-Wu (National Taiwan Normal University) New perspectives on Disks around Planetary-mass Companions from JWST/MIRI
16:15-16:30 Gabriele Cugno (University of Zurich) A carbon-rich disk surrounding a planetary-mass companion
16:30-16:45 Raphael Bendahan-West (University of Exeter) Extreme dust size segregation in HD 21997: Constraining the origin of gas in debris discs with JWST and ALMA
16:45-17:00 Paul Kalas (UC Berkeley) Fireworks around Fomalhaut: Planetesimal collisions directly imaged with Hubble
17:00-17:30
Adjourn
17:30 Opening Reception (Welcome to All, Drinks and Light Snacks)
     
     
Tuesday 2025 February 03
Time  
08:00-09:00 Doors Open
  Synergies and Post-Processing
09:00-09:45
Emily Rickman (STScI)
TBD
09:45-10:00 Thayne M. Currie (UT San Antonio) First Results from the OASIS Survey for Discovering and Characterizing Extrasolar Planets by Direct Imaging and Astrometry
10:00-10:15 Kyle Franson (UCSC) Astrometric Accelerations as Dynamical Beacons: Efficiently Imaging Planets Around Young Accelerating Stars
10:15-10:45
Coffee Break
10:45-11:00 Markus Johannes Bonse (ESO) Use the 4S: A systematic re-analysis of VLT/NaCo data with Explainable Machine Learning
11:00-11:15 Carles Cantero (Observatoire de Geneve) SpeckleNet: a generative deep learning framework for speckle modeling
11:15-11:30 Rodrigo Ferrer-Chavez (Northwestern University) From data-drive to physics-based: exoplanet imaging via differentiable optical models
11:30-11:45 Max Elliott Charles (University of Sydney) AMIGO and the James Webb Interferometer
11:45-12:00 Kaitlyn Hessel (University of Victoria) Machine Learning & Coherent Differential Imaging with SPIDERS
12:00-13:00
Lunch (On Your Own)
13:00-14:00
Poster Session 1
14:00-14:45
JB Ruffio (UCSD)
TBD
14:45-15:00 Jason Wang (Northwestern University) Lessons Learned on Combining High-Contrast Imaging with High-Resolution Spectroscopy after 7 years of KPIC
15:00-15:15 Alexis Bidot (STScI) Enabling medium-contrast direct spectroscopy of exoplanets using MIRI/MRS via forward modeling.
15:15-15:45
Coffee Break
15:45-16:00 Allan Denis (LAM, Marseille) Characterisation of giant planets at high spectral resolution: recent results from VLT/HiRISE
16:00-16:15 Amanda Mia Chavez (Northwestern University) Orbital Analysis of HR8799 Using GRAVITY High Precision Astrometry
16:15-16:30 Briley Lynn Lewis (UCSB) GPU-Enabled Debris Disk Modeling with GRaTeR-JAX
16:30-16:45 Adam K Taras (Leiden Observatory) Nulling interferometry at the VLTI with Asgard
16:45-17:00 Grace Prioscla (University of Sydney) Jewel Masks: High-efficiency Aperture Masking
17:00-17:30
Adjourn
     
     
Wednesday 2025 February 04
Time  
08:00-09:00 Doors Open
  Roman Coronagraph and other New Missions
09:00-09:45
Bertrand Mennesson (NASA JPL)
TBD
09:45-10:00 Eric Cady (NASA JPL) The Commissioning Plan for the Roman Space Telescope Coronagraph Instrument
10:00-10:15 Schuyler Wolff (University of Arizona) Designing the Observation Phase of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Coronagraph Instrument
10:15-10:45
Coffee Break
10:45-11:00 Justin Hom (University of Arizona) CorGI-REx, the bright reference star vetting campaign for the Roman Coronagraph and beyond
11:00-11:15 Alexis Lau (LAM, Marseille) High Order Dithering on HiCAT testbed: extending JWST small grid dithering strategies on Roman CGI 
11:15-11:30 Lucie Leboulleux (CNRS, IPAG) Socio-Demographic Insights into the Exoplanet Direct Imaging Community: A Follow-Up Study
11:30-11:45 Christopher Mendillo (UMass Lowell) PICTURE-D First Flight Results
11:45-12:00 Raphael Rougeot (ESA) Proba-3 precision formation flying mission: an in-orbit success
Free Time
     
     
Thursday 2025 February 05
Time  
08:00-09:00 Doors Open
  Ground-Based Science and Instrumentation
09:00-09:45
Jonathan Fortney (UCSC)
TBD
09:45-10:00 Richelle Felicia van Capelleveen (Leiden) Results from the WIde Separation Planets In Time (WISPIT) survey
10:00-10:15 Tomas Stolker (Leiden) Direct imaging discovery of a young giant planet orbiting on solar system scales
10:15-10:45
Coffee Break
10:45-11:00 Jonathan Roberts (Northwestern) Two Populations, Two Histories: Orbital Eccentricities of Exoplanets and Brown Dwarfs
11:00-11:15 Miles Lucas (University of Arizona) Dynamical Analysis of the HD 169142 Planet-Forming Disk
11:15-11:30 Jinlin Li (Kavli Institute, Peking University) Tracing Shadow Variability in Protoplanetary Disks with Multi-Epoch Scattered-Light Imaging
11:30-11:45 Jared Males (Steward Observatory) GMagAO-X: High-Contrast Imaging at First-Light of GMT
11:45-12:00 Laird Close (Steward Observatory) A Review of Accreting Exoplanet (Protoplanet) High-Contrast H-alpha Direct Imaging Science with Magellan/MagAO-X and a Look to the Future with GMT/GMagAO-X
12:00-13:00
Lunch (On Your Own)
13:00-14:00
Poster Session 2
14:00-14:45
Markus Kasper (ESO)
Extreme Adaptive Optics on the path to the ELT(s)
14:45-15:00 Nathalie Jones (Northwestern) Old Data, New Planet: Finding Candidate Companions from the Gemini Planet Imager Exoplanet Survey
15:00-15:15 Bruce Macintosh (UC Observatories) The Gemini Planet Imager and the Road to GPI 2
15:15-15:45
Coffee Break
15:45-16:00 Olivier Absil (University of Liège) Getting ready for early high-contrast imaging at the ELT with METIS
16:00-16:15 Paulina Palma-Bifani (LIRA, Observatoire de Paris) Exoplanet science with MICADO at the ELT: Simulations, challenges, and first-light strategies
16:15-16:30 Anthony Boccaletti (LIRA, Observatoire de Paris) Upgrading SPHERE with the second stage AO system SAXO+: a technology demonstrator for PCS
16:30-16:45 Julien Lozi (Subaru) SCExAO’s evolution toward multi-stage AO correction & astrophotonics
16:45-17:00 Maissa Salama (UCSC) Exoplanet Imaging with Large Segmented Telescopes: On-Sky Results from using Keck as a Testbed for Next Generation Telescopes
17:00-18:00
Adjourn
18:00 Optional Conference Dinner (Please Register)
     
     
Friday 2025 February 06
Time  
08:00-09:00 Doors Open
  Emerging Technologies and HWO
09:00-09:45
Chris Stark (NASA Goddard)
The Habitable Worlds Observatory and the Search for Other Earths
09:45-10:00 Remi Soummer (STScI) Towards a system-level coronagraphic demonstration for the Habitable Worlds Observatory
10:00-10:15 Saraswathi Kalyani Subramanian (University of Arizona) Performance evaluation of ultraviolet coronagraphs for the Habitable Worlds Observatory
10:15-10:45
Coffee Break
10:45-11:00 Christian Marois (National Research Council of Canada) SPIDERS Habitable Worlds Observatory Experiment: Can we Reach 10^10 Contrast (from ~10^7) with CDI and R10,000 SDI Post-Processing?
11:00-11:15 Caleb Baker (NASA JPL) For a Few Photons More: Design and Development Updates for HWO Testbeds at JPL
11:15-11:30 Rico Landman (NOVA) SUPPPPRESS: Developing low-leakage liquid-crystal vector vortex coronagraphs for space-based exoplanet imaging
11:30-11:45 Rachel Morgan (SETI/NASA Ames) Laboratory Update for the AstroPIC Integrated Photonic Coronagraph
11:45-12:00 Joanna Krynski (ISAE-SUPAERO/CNES) Quanta Image Sensors for Next-Generation Coronagraph Instruments
12:00-13:00
Lunch (On Your Own)
13:00-14:00
Poster Session 2
14:00-14:45
Sebastiaan Haffert (Leiden)
Emerging technologies that bridge the HCI technology gap
14:45-15:15
Technology panel
 
15:15-15:45
Coffee Break
15:45-16:00 J. Kent Wallace (NASA JPL) Dual-purpose Focal Plane Masks for Simultaneous Wavefront Sensing and High-contrast Imaging
16:00-16:15 Jalo Aarni Johannes Nousiainen (ESO) Reinforcement learning for wavefront control: from WFS control to focal plane and from numerical simulations to lab and on-sky with PAPYRUS @ OHP 
16:15-16:30 Yoo Jung Kim (UCLA) On-sky demonstration of subdiffraction-limited measurements using a photonic lantern
16:30-16:45 Skyler Palatnick (UCSB) 4 years in metasurface development for exoplanet imaging at UC Santa Barbara
16:45-17:00 Philippe Priolet (IPAG, Grenoble, France) Multiwavelength Interferometric Observations of Hot Dust in Three Extreme Debris Disks: HD172555, HD113766, and Eta Corvi
17:00-17:30
Adjourn