Research
Exoplanet science
My research in exoplanetary science focuses on planetary populations and comparative planetology. I develop and apply instrument simulators such as ExoRad and ExoSim, which give a detailed picture of instrumental systematics and observational constraints. Combined with data analysis and atmospheric retrieval, these tools support robust interpretation of exoplanet observations and consistent comparison across planetary samples, at the scale a full mission survey needs.
Focus
What I work on
Instrument simulation
End-to-end and radiometric simulation of spectrographs and photometers, from the focal plane to non-destructive reads, to predict and validate mission performance.
Atmospheric retrievals
Numerical inference of atmospheric composition, thermal structure and clouds from low and medium resolution transit and eclipse spectra.
Calibration and detrending
Modelling systematics and calibration effects so that extracted spectra are trustworthy inputs for retrieval and comparison.
Planetary populations
Comparative planetology across large target samples, studying what a full mission survey can reveal about planet formation and evolution.
Missions
Where the work lands
Ariel
Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey
ESA's mission to survey the atmospheres of around 1,000 transiting exoplanets, from the visible to the mid-infrared.
In practice: ArielRad and ExoSim support instrument-performance studies and simulated observations for mission preparation.
EXCITE
EXoplanet Climate Infrared TElescope
NASA's balloon-borne spectrograph studies how the temperature and chemistry of hot-Jupiter atmospheres vary around their orbits.
In practice: ExoRad and ExoSim are used by EXCITE. My contribution focuses on mission-performance modelling and data analysis.
Leadership
Coordination
Coordinating shared simulation work and generating datasets for collaborative research.
Coordinator, S2MD Working Group
2022 to presentAriel Consortium
I coordinate Ariel's S2MD working group, covering end-to-end simulations and data-pipeline definition, and co-manage the mission's official software repository.
Data generation lead, Ariel Data Challenge
2024 to 2025NeurIPS and Kaggle, 2024 and 2025
I led data generation with ExoSim 2 for the 2024 and 2025 Ariel Data Challenges, supporting machine-learning research on extracting exoplanetary signals from simulated observations. The 2024 competition attracted around 7,000 participants and 20,000 submissions.
Collaborations
Service
Roles and memberships
- Ariel Consortium
- Member since December 2018.
- Exoplanet Discovery Group, JPL
- Guest member, contributing instrumentation and data-analysis expertise.
- ExoClock
- Italian and Welsh contact, coordinating amateur astronomers who monitor transiting-exoplanet ephemerides.
- Peer review
- Reviewer for ApJ, Experimental Astronomy, PASP, RASTI and JOSS.
- Learned societies
- Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and of the European Astronomical Society.
Path
Appointments
2023–present
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Cardiff University · Cardiff, UK
2024–2025
Visiting Researcher
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory · Pasadena, USA
2023–2025
Honorary Research Fellow
University College London · London, UK
2022–2025
Research Associate
INAF, Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo · Palermo, Italy
2021–2023
Research Fellow
Sapienza University of Rome · Rome, Italy
Education, awards and teaching are on the about page.
Contact
Work together
For research collaborations, academic roles, speaking, or a scientific or technical consulting enquiry. For web and software development work, mug.n.ai is the better starting point.
- Emailmugnail@cardiff.ac.uk
- LinkedInin/mugnailorenzo
- GitHubLorenzoMugnai
- ORCID0000-0002-9007-9802
- Google ScholarCitation profile
- Based inCardiff, United Kingdom