R. Paul Butler

Developed and applied the iodine cell reference standard and precise Doppler spectroscopic data reduction algorithms that have led to the discovery of hundreds of extrasolar planets, including the first multiple exoplanet system and the first Neptune-mass exoplanet. In 1996 Butler published the seminal paper on data reduction algorithms for the iodine absorption cell. Butler and his colleagues have been in the vanguard of the discovery of over 330 exoplanets, including the first multiple planet system, the first Neptune-mass planet, and the first hot super-Earth.