My name is Khalid Barkaoui, I am a postdoctoral researcher in the SUBSTELLAR team at the Instituto de Astrof´ısica de Canarias (IAC) in Tenerife in Spain. My main research interests is the photometric follow-up of low-mass stars and substellar objects in order to search for transiting exoplanets, as well as stellar variability in the ESA-EUCLID space mission era. Prior to joining the SUBSTELLAR project at the IAC, I was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship for three years funded by the University of Liege in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, USA) and IAC, working on the SPECULOOS-North project at the Teide Observatory. During my PhD (2015–2020) and postdocs (2021–present), I gained enough experience in the observations and studying the transting using the space mission such as Kepler and TESS, and ground-based facilities (1.0m-SPECULOOS-North/-South, 0.6m-TRAPPIST-North/-South, LCO-HAL-2.0m/MuSCAT3, LCO-SSO-2.0m/MuSCAT4, LCOGT-1.0m, and LCOGT-0.4m). My publication record includes 147 refereed scientific papers (7 as first author), with 5,006 citations (123 from first-author papers) and an h-index of 32 (5 for first-author work). I have supervised three Master and two Bachelor students. My observational experience is extensive: I have several accepted proposal as PI and co-I on 10.4m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), 8.0m-ESO VLT, 3.6m-ESO/NIRPS, 3.6m-ESO/HARPS, 4.0m-UKIRT and 8.0m-Gemini/MAROONX, and JWST. I am also a member of NASA TESS follow-up working groups SG1 for photometric follow-up, and a member of the LCOGT data reduction team. I am very active in data reduction and analysis of transiting exoplanets. Out of 21,334, I have uploaded 1,600 exoplanet observation reports to the
TESS-ExoFOP platform. Based on my experience, I believe that my application deserves the Astronomy & Astrophysics Awards 2026. Out of 6000 discovered exoplanets, there are no planets found yet around a substellar object (such as brown dwarf), which is exactly my new research project. Substellar objects have unique characteristics that make them suitable targets to search for transiting temperate planets. Long sequence of high-precision photometry is a unique tool not only for transiting exoplanets search, but for exploring the physics through the photometric variability (due to the presence of spots or heterogeneous cloud decks in the atmospheres) of these objects. My dream is to discover a transiting planet around a substellar object. Finding a planet around a substellar will open a new window in the field of exoplanetary science.