Prof. Lisa Kaltenegger is an award-winning astrophysicist and astrobiologist, the Founding Director of the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell, Professor in Astronomy at Cornell University, and author of Alien Earths: The Science for Planet Hunting in the Cosmos. Lisa Kaltenegger is a pioneer and world-leading expert in modeling habitable worlds and their light fingerprints 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. Prof. Kaltenegger is the author of more than 100 peer-reviewed publications.
Lisa Kaltenegger served on the National Science Foundation’s Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee (AAAC), and on NASA senior review of operating missions, among others. She is a Science Team Member of NASA’s TESS Mission and the NIRISS instrument on JWST.
Among her international awards are the Carl Sagan Medal of the IAU, the the Invited Discourse lecture at 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.
Lisa Kaltenegger was named one of America’s Young Innovators by Smithsonian Magazine, an Innovator to Watch by TIME Magazine, and she was selected as one of the European Commission’s Role Models for Women in Science and Research. Prof. Kaltenegger is a popular science communicator: she was featured in the IMAX 3D movie “The Search for Life in Space” and has given numerous public lectures, including for the Aspen Ideas Festival, TEDNext, TED Youth, and the World Science Festival. She also gave the Kavli Foundation lecture at the Adler Planetarium, which was live-streamed to 6 continents. Her new book “Alien Earths: The New Science of Planet Hunting in the Cosmos” will be published April 16 2024.
Asteroid 7734Kaltenegger is named after her.
- Personal Website: https://www.lisakaltenegger.com/
- Carl Sagan Institute Website: https;//www.carlsaganinstitute.cornell.edu
Find her @KalteneggerLisa or @CSInst, facebook and instagramAdditional Affiliations
- Research Associate at Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Boston
- Research Associate at the American Museum of Natural History, NYC