Andrew Siemion
Dr. Andrew Siemion is 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. He is jointly affiliated with The Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON) Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands and the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California.
Dr. Siemion’s research interests include studies of time-variable celestial phenomena, astronomical instrumentation and the search for life. Dr. Siemion is one of the leaders of the “Breakthrough Listen Initiative” – a 10 year, 100 million dollar effort, sponsored by Yuri Milner’s Breakthrough Prize Foundation, that is conducting the most sensitive search for advanced extraterrestrial life in history. Dr. Siemion was a recipient of the Josephine De Kármán Fellowship for Undergraduate Studies at UC Berkeley, the UC Berkeley Dorothea Klumpke Roberts Prize for outstanding scholarship as an undergraduate major in astrophysics and the UC Berkeley Mary Elizabeth Uhl Dissertation Prize for his work on searches for exotic radio phenomena.
Dr. Siemion also serves on the Science@Cal Advisory Board, Co-Chairs the Cradle of Life Science Working Group for the forthcoming Square Kilometre Array telescope and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Foundation for Investing in Research on SETI Science and Technology (FIRSST). Dr. Siemion frequently appears on international television and radio discussing the search for life beyond on Earth and the prospects for detection.
Talk: Breakthrough Listen: Searching for Intelligent Life Beyond Earth