Michelle Kunimoto
Canadian astronomer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Michelle Kunimoto (born 1992 or 1993 (age 32–33)[1]) is a Canadian astronomer from Abbotsford, British Columbia,[1] and is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Kunimoto had discovered four exoplanet candidates as a UBC undergraduate, using Kepler space telescope data, becoming one of the youngest people to do so in 2016.[2] She was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2017.[3] In 2020, she discovered 17 more.[4]
Kunimoto was a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and led MIT's planet search team for NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) Mission.[5][1] She leads the TESS Faint Star Search.[6] As of 2025, she has uncovered more than 3,600 planet candidates, including over 100 confirmed exoplanets.[7] Her discoveries include the HD 101581[8] and HD 260655[9] planetary systems.