Matthias Samland

Independent Post-doctoral Researcher — Max Planck Institute for Astronomy

samland@mpia.de ORCID 0000-0001-9992-4067 m-samland ADS Portfolio Königstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany

Personal Information

Languages Native German • Native-level English • Fluent Japanese (JLPT N1)

Education — leading expertise in high-contrast imaging

Nov 2015 – Jul 2019
Ph.D., Astronomy
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy • Ruprecht-Karls University, Heidelberg, Germany
Thesis: High-Contrast Imaging Characterization of Exoplanets
Grade 1.0 • Summa cum laude
Sep 2012 – Sep 2015
Master of Science, Physics
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy • Ruprecht-Karls University, Heidelberg, Germany
Thesis: Principal Component Analysis in the Context of High-Contrast Imaging
Nov 2012 – Sep 2013
Research Project
Infrared Astronomy Group, Osaka University, Japan
Topic: High-contrast imaging with the SEEDS survey
Sep 2009 – Aug 2012
Bachelor of Science, Physics
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy • Ruprecht-Karls University, Heidelberg, Germany
Thesis: Global-Scale Glaciation Events and the Link to Exoplanets

Employment History

Oct 2021 – present
Post-doctoral Researcher
Planet and Star Formation & APEx Department, Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany
Oct 2019 – Sep 2021
Post-doctoral Researcher
Stars, Planets and Astrobiology Group, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
Aug 2019 – Sep 2019
Post-doctoral Researcher
Planet and Star Formation Department, Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany

Teaching Experience — 4 students

Feb – Sep 2024
Supervision of Bachelor Student
Julian Schauber — The Search for Planets and Brown Dwarfs around B-stars in the Massive Star-forming Region Orion (VLT/SPHERE survey; PI: Samland)
Feb – May 2024
Supervision of Internship Student
Joyce Glass — Searching for Exoplanets with JWST Imaging of Orion
2022 – 2023
Supervision of Master’s Student
Philipp Herz — Development of a statistical method to estimate the likelihood of a planet candidate being real based on Gaia stellar populations (published)
2018 – 2019
Supervision of Master’s Student
Jonas Kemmer — Homogeneous Reduction of the SPHERE/SHINE Survey Using ANDROMEDA and PyKLIP
Sep 2014 – Feb 2015
Teaching Assistant
Introduction to Astronomy II (undergraduate course)

Recent Talks

June 2025
The dawn of comparative exo-cometology
EAS, Berlin, Germany
Feb 2025
Debris Disks with JWST: The Missing Link in the mid-IRInvited
A Sharper View, Ringberg, Germany
Oct 2024
Characterizing Disks and Planets from the Ground and Space
Origins Seminars, Tucson, USA — recording
Sep 2024
The MINDS Gas-Rich Debris Disk Sample Observed with JWST/MIRI MRSInvited
Europlanet Science Conference, Berlin, Germany
Apr 2024
JWST Imaging of ExoplanetsInvited
Villa Vigoni Workshop on Protoplanetary Disks, Menaggio, Italy
Aug 2023
Imaging of Debris Disks in the MINDS Survey
JWST MIRI European Consortium Meeting, Dublin, Ireland
Nov 2022
Recent Updates in High-Contrast Imaging of Exoplanets
Special Seminar, Tokyo University, Japan
Jul 2022
Highlights in High-Contrast Imaging of Exoplanets
Königsstuhl Colloquium, MPIA, Heidelberg, Germany

Accepted PI/Co-PI (Principle Investigator) Proposals — 11 proposals • 125 hours on 6 instruments

JWST/MIRI • 2026 Digging to the Photosphere: Circumplanetary Disk Emission from the Gap-Opening Protoplanet WISPIT 2 b (15.6 hours)
VLT/SPHERE • 2026 Confirming Young Giant Planets at the Snowline of Intermediate-Mass Stars (28.5 hours)
VLT/SPHERE & VLTI/GRAVITY • 2026 Understanding the Inner Terrestrial Planet Zone of a Giant Impact System (12.5 hours)
VLT/SPHERE • 2025 Search for Exoplanets in Extreme Debris Disks (14 hours)
VLT/ERIS • 2024 Confirming the Youngest Population of Exoplanets around B-stars in Orion (6 hours)
VLT/SPHERE • 2023 Imaging the Youngest Population of Exoplanets around B-stars in Orion (35 hours)
LBT/LMIRC • 2022 Imaging the Youngest Population of Exoplanets around B-stars in Orion (3 hours)
LBT/ALES • 2021 IFU L-band Spectroscopy of HD 206893 b (executed; poor conditions)
VLT/SPHERE • 2020 Targeted Imaging of a Benchmark Brown Dwarf Detected by Gaia and RV (pandemic loss)
LBT/ALES • 2018 IFU L-band Spectroscopy of HD 206893 b (weather loss)
LBT/LMIRC • 2016 Observational Confirmation of Planet Candidate CVSO 30 c in L-band (weather loss)

Observing Experience — 25 nights at 3 observatories

2015
2.2m / FEROS — La Silla, Chile
10 nights — High-resolution spectroscopy of RV binary candidates survey
2015
VLT / SPHERE — Paranal, Chile
11 nights — SHINE GTO exoplanet survey
2013
Subaru / HiCIAO — Mauna Kea, Hawaii
4 nights — SEEDS exoplanet survey

Organisational Roles — TAC • SOC • Referee • Representative

TAC JWST Cycle 4 • ESO DPR veteran
SOC Chair of SOC for symposium at EAS 2023: “One Year of JWST: The Road from Protostars to Planets”
Referee JOSS — Journal for Open Source Science • A&A
Representative Work environment post-docs representative, Stockholm University

Computer Skills — 3 published open-source packages

Open-source packages spherical • trap • vlt/sphere-ifs
AI / LLMs Agentic LLM frameworks with ReAct and offline models • Prompt engineering
Programming Python (very advanced) • Cython (intermediate) • C++ (basics)
Scientific compute NumPy • SciPy • Pandas • astropy • scikit-learn • scikit-image • OpenCV
Visualization Matplotlib • Seaborn • Bokeh • GlueViz • pyds9