I'm Fuda Nguyen (Phúc-Đạt Nguyễn) -- native of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam -- currently researching exoplanet and brown dwarf atmospheres with Professor Daniel Apai, particularly on time-series monitoring of atmospheric evolution over short and long timescales. I'm the PI of the JWST Cycle 4 GO program “The Polar Expedition” (8846) which was awarded 112 hours to search for signs of polar vortices on the atmosphere of brown dwarfs and planetary-mass objects. I am part of the NASA ExoExplorer 2024 Cohort, as well as a science team member of the PANDORA Small-Sat mission, a NASA Pioneer Small-Sat mission launching in 2026. 

In my research, I conduct and analyze observations from JWST, TESS, HST, and PANDORA to monitor the evolution of cloud covers, circulation, and chemistry of exoplanet and ultracool atmospheres. This work is important because certain atmospheres share a common atmospheric parameter space, and learning about one part of the space will help inform another. Brown dwarfs, cold Solar System gas giants, and directly imaged exoplanets are all part of a common parameter group, with strong rotation and weakly-irradiated atmospheres. Thus, insights from observationally accessible brown dwarfs and Solar System gas giants can help understand atmospheric characterization on more difficult directly imaged targets.