Ji Wang

I was born in Guilin, a beautiful small city in southeast part of China. Guilin is eight hours drive from Hong Kong, Seven hours from Vietnam. I attended the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in the city of Hefei, six hours drive from Shanghai and two hours from Nanjing. In 2006, I went to the University of Florida in Gainesville to pursue my passion in Astronomy. Gainesville is two hours drive from Orlando, two hours drive from Tampa and one hour and half drive from Jacksonville. I spent 6 years in Gainesville and obtained my PhD in 2012. After that, I moved to Yale University in New Haven as a postdoc. New Haven is two hours drive from New York city and two and half hours drive from Boston. All these places are small. I have to tell people the distances to nearby major cities so that they know where I am. I like small places, where I can settle down and immerse myself in things I am interested in. From 2015 to 2018, I was a postdoc at Caltech, a beautiful campus in Pasadena, 15 minutes drive from downtown Los Angeles. Starting from August in 2018, I join the faculty in the department of Astronomy at the Ohio State University.

I am interested in planets around other stars, i.e., exoplanets. The ultimate goal is to search for life on other planets, and answer the question: are we alone in the Universe. Before reaching the ultimate goal, there are many mini-steps to take to make the leap. We have to first detect as many exoplanets as possible to understand their statistics, e.g., how often they form and how often they exist in the habitable zone, where temperature and space environment are amenable to life as we know. The next thing is to launch missions to search for planets in the habitable zone. Such missions will provide a candidate list of potential habitable planets. Follow-up observations of these candidates will be conducted to search for signs of life or biomarkers. Once confirmed, the time will come for space exploration of habitable exoplanets.

In my spare time, I like to watch sports games. American football is my favorite. I am a hardcore fan of Florida Gators and I am bleeding Orange and Blue. Now I am obligated to become a Buckeye fan. In NFL, I like Steelers and Ravens, which is often not understood by people. However, taking away bandwagon, don't they play similar style? I like to play all kinds of sports as well, basket ball, tennis, golf, swimming, as long as you can name it. I like to workout, long-distance running is my passion. I have finished my first half marathon at Mount Dora in 2014. I would like to finish a marathon at some point in my life.