Welcome To My Site

Hilke Schlichting is a professor of exoplanets and planetary sciences, and the director of the Planetary Evolution & Atmospheres Research Lab (PEARL) at UCLA.

Her research interests lie at the intersection of astrophysics and planetary sciences. Her group combines exoplanet-research with the study of the Solar System and takes advantage of this powerful synergy to develop new theoretical models of planet formation and evolution.

Prof. Schlichting was an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge from 2000-2004, and completed her PhD at Caltech in 2009. She was a NASA Hubble postdoctoral fellow at UCLA and joined the faculty at MIT in 2013. She returned to UCLA as tenured professor in 2016 and was promoted to full professor in 2021. She served as associate dean for research in the physical sciences at UCLA from 2022-2026.

     Some of her past honors and awards include selection as Kavli Frontiers of Science Fellow, as Signatures of Life in the Universe Scialog Fellow, and as Visiting Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge. In addition, Asteroid 9522 is named after her in recognition of her work on the Kuiper Belt.

     Recently, she gave the distinguished vistor lecture at the University of Cambirdge.

PI:

Prof. Hilke Schlichting

CV

Publications  

News:

February 2026:

Hilke will be giving the distinguished visitor lecture at the University of Cambridge on May 12th 2026.Talk details can be found here.

March 2026:

Congratulations Danica for receiving a UCLA Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellowship. Read the full announcement here.

Congratulations Belen for being selected for one of the Deane Oberste-Lehn Scholarships!

Our Lab gratefully acknowledges research support from:

Queens Road Foundation Inc

Last updated June 2026