Dr. Lisa Kaltenegger is an award-winning astrophysicist and astrobiologist, Founding Director of the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell, Professor in Astronomy, Public speaker, and author of Alien Earths: The Science for Planet Hunting in the Cosmos.
Asteroid 7734 Kaltenegger is named after her.
Lisa Kaltenegger at Fuertes Observatory, Cornell. image credit Cornell
Lisa 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.
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, and the Barry-Jones Inauguration Award of the Royal Astrobiology Society and Open University in Britain. Her review 2017 on How to Characterize Habitable Worlds and Signs of Life was selected by Annual Reviews as part 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 stars in the IMAX 3D movie "The Search for Life in Space."
She speaks at events around the globe, including the Aspen Ideas Festival, TED Youth, World Science Festival, Falling Walls, and STARMUS. Lisa lives with her family in Upstate NY, and when she is not trying to find life in the cosmos, she loves reading, traveling, cooking, dancing, and spending time with friends while drinking too much coffee and Earl Grey.
Find her @KalteneggerLisa or @CSInst or Contact Dr. Kaltenegger here.
SCIENTIFIC WORK: Prof. Kaltenegger is the author of more than 100 peer-reviewed publications. These scientific research papers can be found here.