Jill Tarter

Jill Tarter holds the Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI Research and is Director of the Center for SETI Research at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California.

Jill received her Bachelor of Engineering Physics degree from Cornell University and her Master’s degree and a PhD in Astronomy from the University of California, Berkeley. Jill serves on the management board for the Allen Telescope Array, a joint project between the SETI Institute and the UC Berkeley Radio Astronomy Laboratory.

Tarter’s work has brought her wide recognition in the scientific community, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from Women in Aerospace, two Public Service Medals from NASA, Chabot Observatory’s Person of the Year award, Women of Achievement Award in the Science and Technology category from the Women’s Fund and the San Jose Mercury News, and the Tesla Award of Technology at the Telluride Tech Festival. In 2004 Time magazine named her one of the Time 100 most influential people in the world, and in 2005 Tarter was awarded the Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization at Wonderfest.