Sara Seager

The Sara Seager speech on the search for alien life explains different techniques being used to find planets outside of our solar system that could sustain water-based life (also known as inhabitable exo-planets). The astrophysicist and planetary scientist is also a professor at MIT, where her research focuses on theory, computation and data analysis of exo-planets. She is a pioneer in this area and is currently working to find the 'true Earth twin.'

She received her PhD from Harvard University before spending three years at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and going on to spend four years on the senior research staff at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. She joined the MIT faculty in 2007 and teaches planetary science and physics there. The Sara Seager speech discusses her work on the detection of eco-planet atmospheres and theories about life on such planets.