In the past twenty years, scientists have discovered thousands of planets around other stars. Many are unlike any of the worlds in our Solar System, and a fraction might be hospitable to life. But almost all of these planets have something in common: they are old — billions of years old.

This revolution is giving us a chance to discover where we come from, how we got here, and whether we are alone in the universe. But trying to uncover how planets evolve using only these worlds is like trying to guess how babies grow into teenagers, when all you have to study are middle-aged adults.

That's why I spent my PhD developing tools to discover newborn planets around very young stars. This work, which would help provide a direct window into how planets form, earned me the Kevin E. Strecker Award and the William & Elva Gordon Fellowship. Though the team continues its research, my tools have already helped another group characterize a newfound young planet about the size of Jupiter. If the Sun were age 40, this baby world would be about 5 weeks old.