Aniket Sanghi

I am a third year graduate student and NSF Research Fellow pursuing a Ph.D. in Astrophysics at the California Institute of Technology. I graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. in Astronomy (Honors) and a B.S. in Physics from The University of Texas at Austin in May 2023 and earned a M.S. in Astrophysics from Caltech in June 2025. My primary research interest lies in investigating the formation and evolution of Solar System-analog extrasolar gas giant planets using high-contrast imaging and spectroscopy. The most typical giant exoplanets are located at separations between 1-10 au from their host stars. Traditionally, this population has not been accessible to direct characterization techniques either because their corresponding angular separations are too small for detection around young stars located in moving groups (~10-100 pc) or the planets are too cold for near-infrared ground-based observations around mature field stars in our vicinity (within 10 pc). I am tackling both challenges in my work to bridge the exoplanet characterization gap.