Contact Info
My earliest experience with aerospace was a report on the planets of the Solar System in fourth grade — alas, Pluto.
Biography
Kerri Cahoy is the Sheila Evans Widnall (1960) Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT and leads the MIT Space Telecommunications, Astronomy, and Radiation (STAR) Lab. She develops nanosatellite laser communication systems and weather sensors, such as the CubeSat Laser Infrared CrosslinK (CLICK-A) mission, Microsized Microwave Atmospheric Satellite (MicroMAS-2), and the Deformable Mirror Demonstration (DeMi) mission. She is part of the MIT Small Satellite Collaborative, and is co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at SpaceRake.
Professor Cahoy previously worked on spacecraft radio systems for space weather and planetary atmospheric sensing, a method called radio occultation. Her doctoral research was on radio occultation studies of the upper atmosphere of Mars using the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, and on the MIT Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory lunar mission team at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
Specialization and Research Interests
Science interests involve atmospheric sensing and exoplanet detection and characterization. Technology demonstration interests include laser communications, adaptive optics, and autonomy.
Teaching Interests
My teaching interests include Satellite Engineering, Remote Sensing, and Space Systems Design. My research interests focus on use of nanosatellites for science and technology demonstrations.
Academic Degrees
2008, Ph.D. Electrical Engineering, Stanford University; 2002, M.S. Electrical Engineering, Stanford University; 2000, B.S. Electrical Engineering, Cornell University
Society Memberships
AIAA, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), American Astronomical Society, National Society for Optics and Photonics
Positions Held at MIT
Associate Department Head, November 2023-April 2024
Professor, Aeronautics and Astronautics, July 2023 — Present; Associate Professor, Aeronautics and Astronautics, July 2016 — June 2023; Assistant Professor, Aeronautics and Astronautics, July 2011 — June 2016; Research Staff, Earth and Planetary Sciences and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, June 2010 — July 2011
Positions Held outside MIT
NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow, NASA Ames Research Center, Exoplanets, October 2008 – June 2010; Senior RF Payload Engineer and Communications Scientist, Space Systems Loral, August 2006 – October 2008; NASA Educational Associate, January 2006 – August 2006; NASA Ames Research Center, Intelligent Robotics Group, Graduate Student Researcher; Stanford University Electrical Engineering, June 2002 – January 2006
Awards & Honors
- Committed to Caring, MIT, 2020
- Associate Fellow, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), 2018
- Outstanding UROP Mentor, MIT, 2013
- Co-Op Mentor of the Year, Cornell University, 2008
Research
- Liquid lenses for aerospace beam steering and communications: MOSAIC (2025) S. Kacker, K. Cahoy. Optics Express 33 (1), 1296-1313.
- Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) radio occultation climatologies mapped by machine learning and Bayesian interpolation (2025) E. Shehaj, S. Leroy, K. Cahoy, et al. Atmospheric Measurement Techniques, 18, 57-72.
- Optical alignment for CubeSat crosslink laser communication terminals (2025) A. Lee, T. Hinderman, P. Serra, P. Forester, A. Gill, J. Conroy, C. Lisy, D. Coogan, L. Gallo, K. Cahoy. SPIE / Journal Article.
- Demonstrations of adjoint electric field conjugation for a vortex coronagraph (2025) K. Milani, S. D. Will, K. Van Gorkom, E. S. Douglas, J. N. Ashcraft, K. Cahoy. Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems 11, no. 03.
- Pulsed Laser Links Simulation for Small Satellite Clock Model Estimation (2024) D. E. Coogan, J. W. Conklin, N. Belsten, K. Cahoy, et al. Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets.