Patrick Tamburo

Welcome! I am a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Charbonneau Astronomy Group at Harvard University. My current focus is using Harvard's Tierras Observatory to search for exoplanets around very low-mass stars, detect exomoons and exorings, and characterize stellar variability.

A key goal of astronomy is the atmospheric characterization of Earth-like exoplanets. However, at present, these measurements are only feasible for transiting rocky exoplanets around nearby very low-mass stars and brown dwarfs. This fact inspired the work that I completed for my Ph.D. thesis on the Perkins INfrared Exosatellite Survey (PINES) and motivates my current work on Tierras. By searching for Earth-like planets around hosts that permit characterization efforts, I hope to contribute to answering one of humanity's longest-standing questions, one that could be answered in our lifetimes: are we alone?

Click here for the latest copy of my CV.

Tierras Observatory is a fully robotic 1.3-m telescope atop Mt. Hopkins, AZ. It is equipped with an ultra-precise photometer specifically designed to reduce systematic effects that impact time series observations of very low-mass stars. We are using Tierras to search for exoplanets around mid-to-late M dwarfs, search for exomoons and exorings, and characterize stellar variability. Read the overview paper here.

As a graduate student, I designed and implemented the Perkins INfrared Satellite Survey (PINES) on Boston University's 1.8-m Perkins Telescope Observatory. PINES is an ongoing search for transiting planets and moons around L and T dwarfs, objects that span the boundary between the stellar and substellar regimes. Read the survey overview paper here.

1. Tamburo, P., Muirhead, P. S., and Dressing, C. D., 2023. "Predicting the Yield of Small Transiting Exoplanets around Mid-M and Ultracool Dwarfs in the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey". The Astronomical Journal, 165, 251.


2. Tamburo, P., Withers, P., Dalba, P. A., Moore, L., and Koskinen, T., 2023. "Cassini Radio Occultation Observations of Saturn's Ionosphere: Electron Density Profiles From 2005 to 2013". Journal of Geophysical Research (Space Physics), 128, e2023JA031310.


3. Tamburo, P., Muirhead, P. S., McCarthy, A. M., Hart, M., Vos, J. M., Agol, E., Theissen, C., Gracia, D., Bardalez Gagliuffi, D. C., and Faherty, J., 2022. "The Perkins INfrared Exosatellite Survey (PINES). II. Transit Candidates and Implications for Planet Occurrence around L and T Dwarfs". The Astronomical Journal, 164, 252.


4. Tamburo, P., Muirhead, P. S., McCarthy, A. M., Hart, M., Gracia, D., Vos, J. M., Bardalez Gagliuffi, D. C., Faherty, J., Theissen, C., Agol, E., Skinner, J. N., and Sagear, S., 2022. "The Perkins INfrared Exosatellite Survey (PINES) I. Survey Overview, Reduction Pipeline, and Early Results". The Astronomical Journal, 163, 253.


5. Tamburo, P. and Muirhead, P. S., 2019. "Design Considerations for a Ground-based Search for Transiting Planets around L and T Dwarfs". Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 131, 114401.


6. Tamburo, P., Mandell, A., Deming, D., and Garhart, E., 2018. "Confirming Variability in the Secondary Eclipse Depth of the Super-Earth 55 Cancri e". The Astronomical Journal, 155, 221.

1. McCarthy, A. M., Muirhead, P. S., Tamburo, P., Vos, J. M., Morley, C. V., Faherty, J., Bardalez Gagliuffi, D. C., Agol, E., and Theissen, C., 2024. "Multiple Patchy Cloud Layers in the Planetary Mass Object SIMP0136+0933". arXiv e-prints, arXiv:2402.15001.


2. Lincowski, A. P., Meadows, V. S., Zieba, S., Kreidberg, L., Morley, C., Gillon, M., Selsis, F., Agol, E., Bolmont, E., Ducrot, E., Hu, R., Koll, D. D. B., Lyu, X., Mandell, A., Suissa, G., and Tamburo, P., 2023. "Potential Atmospheric Compositions of TRAPPIST-1 c Constrained by JWST/MIRI Observations at 15 μm". The Astrophysical Journal, 955, L7.


3. Zieba, S., Kreidberg, L., Ducrot, E., Gillon, M., Morley, C., Schaefer, L., Tamburo, P., Koll, D. D. B., Lyu, X., Acuña, L., Agol, E., Iyer, A. R., Hu, R., Lincowski, A. P., Meadows, V. S., Selsis, F., Bolmont, E., Mandell, A. M., and Suissa, G., 2023. "No thick carbon dioxide atmosphere on the rocky exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 c". Nature, 620, 746.


4. Colón, K. D., Kreidberg, L., Welbanks, L., Line, M. R., Madhusudhan, N., Beatty, T., Tamburo, P., Stevenson, K. B., Mandell, A., Rodriguez, J. E., Barclay, T., Lopez, E. D., Stassun, K. G., Angerhausen, D., Fortney, J. J., James, D. J., Pepper, J., Ahlers, J. P., Plavchan, P., Awiphan, S., Kotnik, C., McLeod, K. K., Murawski, G., Chotani, H., LeBrun, D., Matzko, W., Rea, D., Vidaurri, M., Webster, S., Williams, J. K., Cox, L. S., Tan, N., and Gilbert, E. A., 2020. "An Unusual Transmission Spectrum for the Sub-Saturn KELT-11b Suggestive of a Subsolar Water Abundance". The Astronomical Journal, 160, 280.


5. Dalba, P. A. and Tamburo, P., 2019. "Spitzer Detection of the Transiting Jupiter-analog Exoplanet Kepler-167e". The Astrophysical Journal, 873, L17.


6. Sheppard, K. B., Mandell, A. M., Tamburo, P., Gandhi, S., Pinhas, A., Madhusudhan, N., and Deming, D., 2017. "Evidence for a Dayside Thermal Inversion and High Metallicity for the Hot Jupiter WASP-18b". The Astrophysical Journal, 850, L32.

A full listing of my publications is also available on SAO/NASA ADS.

Email: patrick.tamburo@cfa.harvard.edu
Address: 60 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138
Bluesky: @tamburo.bsky.social