Charles P. de Saint-Aignan (born 16 February 1977,

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

) is an American software engineer who works for IBM on the

IBM Watson IBM Watson is a question-answering computer system capable of answering questions posed in natural language, developed in IBM's DeepQA project by a research team led by principal investigator David Ferrucci. Watson was named after IBM's founder ...

project. He graduated from

St. Paul's School (Concord, New Hampshire) St. Paul's School (also known as St. Paul's or SPS) is a highly selective college- preparatory, coeducational boarding school in Concord, New Hampshire, affiliated with the Episcopal Church. It is often regarded as one of the most elite boardi ...

, in 1995, followed by

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

(

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...

), in 1999. In 1994, de Saint-Aignan worked for

Ted Bowell Edward L. G. "Ted" Bowell (born 1943 in London), is an American astronomer. Bowell was educated at Emanuel School London, University College, London, and the University of Paris. He was principal investigator of the Lowell Observatory Near-Earth- ...

Lowell Observatory Lowell Observatory is an astronomical observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, United States. Lowell Observatory was established in 1894, placing it among the oldest observatories in the United States, and was designated a National Historic Landmark ...

, where he discovered a number of

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...

s. He named his first discovery, 8710 Hawley, after Walter N. Hawley, who was his high school physics and astronomy teacher. The minor planet 5995 Saint-Aignan was named in de Saint-Aignan's honor on the occasion of his 20th birthday.

References

1977 births Living people 20th-century American astronomers American software engineers Brown University alumni Discoverers of asteroids * IBM employees Scientists from Paris {{US-astronomer-stub