Biography
Dr. Leigh Fletcher is a Professor of Planetary Science at the University of Leicester, specialising in the exploration of our Solar System’s giant planets via robotic spacecraft missions, ground-based astronomical facilities, and space telescopes.
He earned a Natural Science degree from Cambridge, a PhD in Planetary Physics from Oxford, and has since worked as a NASA fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and as a Research Fellow at Oxford. He held a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (URF) between 2013 and 2020. He was the recipient of the 2016 Harold C. Urey prize for outstanding achievements in planetary science by an early-career scientist, awarded by the Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) of the American Astronomical Society. He is a team member for the Cassini mission to Saturn, the Juno and JUICE missions to Jupiter, and is a passionate advocate for future exploration of the distant Ice Giants. He currently leads a planetary atmospheres team at the University of Leicester, funded by the Royal Society, STFC, and the European Research Council. You can follow his research via Twitter and his blog on Substack, Planetary Wanderings.
Interests
- Planetary Science
- Atmospheric Physics
- Spectral Retrieval
Education
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PhD in Planetary Physics, 2007
University of Oxford
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MSci in Natural Sciences, 2004
University of Cambridge
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BA in Natural Sciences, 2003
University of Cambridge
