Lisa Kaltenegger

Dr. Lisa Kaltenegger is an award-winning astrophysicist and astrobiologist, Founding Director of the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell University, astronomy professor, public speaker and author. At the Institute, she leads an interdisciplinary team of astronomers, biologists, engineers, mathematicians and more who work together to answer the fundamental question: Are we alone in the cosmos?

Prof. Kaltenegger is a pioneer and world-leading expert in modeling habitable worlds and their light fingerprint and has spent the last decade finding new ways to spot life in the cosmos, working with NASA and ESA from Austria to the Netherlands, Harvard, Germany, and now Cornell. She is the author of more than 100 peer-reviewed publications.

Among her international awards are the Invited Discourse lecture at the IAU General Assembly in Hawaii, the Heinz Meier Leibnitz Prize for Physics of Germany, the Doppler Prize for Innovation in Science of Austria, the Barry-Jones Inauguration Award of the Royal Astrobiology Society and Open University in Britain, and the Beatrice Tinsley Lecturer of the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand. Annual Reviews selected her review 2017 on "How to Characterize Habitable Worlds and Signs of Life"as part of a collection celebrating pioneering women scientists.

Prof. Kaltenegger was named one of America’s Young Innovators by Smithsonian Magazine, an Innovator to Watch by TIME Magazine, and was selected as one of the European Commission’s Role Models for Women in Science and Research. A popular science communicator, she was featured in the IMAX 3D movie "The Search for Life in Space; wrote the book "Alien Earths: The Science for Planet Hunting in the Cosmos"; and has given numerous public lectures, including for the Aspen Ideas Festival, TED Youth, and the World Science Festival. She also gave the Kavli Foundation lecture at the Adler Planetarium, which was live-streamed to six continents.

Asteroid 7734 Kaltenegger is named after her.