Rate My Professor Kevin France

Kevin France is an Associate Professor in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences and the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder, a position he assumed in 2021 after serving as Assistant Professor there from 2015 to 2021. He previously held the role of Assistant Research Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder from 2013 to 2015 and was a NASA Nancy Grace Roman Technology Fellow during that time. From 2006 to 2007, France was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics and the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Toronto. He earned his Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Johns Hopkins University in 2006, with a dissertation titled “Far-Ultraviolet Molecular Hydrogen Fluorescence in Photodissociation Regions,” advised by Paul D. Feldman, and his B.A. in Physics and Astronomy from Boston University in 2000, graduating magna cum laude with Distinction and receiving the College Prize in Astronomy. Currently, he serves as Associate Chair for Graduate Studies in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences.

France's research focuses on exoplanets and their host stars, protoplanetary disks, and the development of instrumentation for ultraviolet astrophysics. He is Principal Investigator for the Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment (CUTE) CubeSat mission, the ESCAPE Small Explorer mission concept, the MUSCLES Treasury Survey providing ultraviolet spectral characterizations of low-mass exoplanet host stars, and numerous NASA-supported sounding rocket payloads that test technologies for future missions. He is a member of the Hubble Space Telescope Cosmic Origins Spectrograph science team, the Habitable Worlds Observatory Community Science and Instrumentation Team, and NASA’s LUVOIR Surveyor Science and Technology Definition Team. Key publications include “The Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment Mission Overview” (France et al., The Astronomical Journal, 2023), the MUSCLES Treasury Survey papers (e.g., The Astrophysical Journal, 2016), and contributions to Nature such as “Identification of carbon dioxide in an exoplanet atmosphere” (2023). His work has garnered significant NASA funding, exceeding millions of dollars for projects like CUTE ($3.8 million total).