Dr. Andrew Siemion is the Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI at the SETI Institute. He is also an astrophysicist at the University of California (UC), Berkeley and serves as Director of the UC Berkeley Center for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Research. Dr. Siemion’s research interests include studies of time-variable celestial phenomena, astronomical instrumentation and the search for technosignatures. He is the Principal Investigator for the “Breakthrough Listen Initiative” – a 10 year, 100 million dollar effort, sponsored by the Breakthrough Prize Foundation, that is conducting the most sensitive search for advanced extraterrestrial life in history.

Talk: The Search for Technosignatures

In the last few decades it has been determined conclusively that Earth-like planets are common, with perhaps 100 billion such exoplanets in our galaxy alone. But do any of these innumerable worlds host life?…Or even intelligent life possessing technology similar to our own? This presentation will explore the state of the art in humanity’s efforts to unlock the secrets of life in the cosmos.