Jill Cornell Tarter

Born: 1944

Country of Birth: USA

Nationality: USA

Ethnicity: White

Cornell University BEP (Engineering Physics) 1965 or 1966; UC Berkeley MA 1971 & PhD 1975 both in Astronomy

""Are we alone?" Tarter stated, "Humans will have a different view about being human if and when we know the answer to the 'Are we alone?' question." (wikipedia); “Often the aliens of science fiction say more about us than they do about themselves.... While Sir [sic] Stephen Hawking warned that alien life might try to conquer or colonize Earth, I respectfully disagree. If aliens were able to visit Earth that would mean they would have technological capabilities sophisticated enough not to need slaves, food, or other planets. If aliens were to come here it would be simply to explore. Considering the age of the Universe, we probably wouldn’t be their first extraterrestrial encounter, either. We should look at movies like ‘Men in Black III,’ ‘Prometheus’ and ‘Battleship’ as great entertainment and metaphors for our own fears, but we should not consider them harbingers of alien visitation.” (wikipedia); “All of the pictures that we have of me as a young child are just full of fish and fancy dresses together,” Tarter says. “I would be in this white, starched, ironed pinafore dress with little white socks, Mary Janes, and ribbons in my hair and holding this great big fish that I had caught with my father.” (vice.com); “If you learn early how to work with others that have skills that are different—sometimes complementary, sometimes overlapping—you can use that to make an end product even more brilliant.” (vice.com); "Life has evolved to thrive in environments that are extreme only by our limited human standards: in the boiling battery acid of Yellowstone hot springs, in the cracks of permanent ice sheets, in the cooling waters of nuclear reactors, miles beneath the Earth's crust, in pure salt crystals, and inside the rocks of the dry valleys of Antarctica." (quotesgram.com); "We are made out of stardust. The iron in the hemoglobin molecules in the blood in your right hand came from a star that blew up 8 billion years ago. The iron in your left hand came from another star." (quotesgram.com); "

— Jill Cornell Tarter

Field of Study: Radio Astronomy; Astrobiology

Institution/Corporation: SETI; NASA; UC Berkeley

Degrees & Memberships: Member: Board of Directors Starmus; CuriosityStream Advisory Board; Board of Advisors Space for Humanity; Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (1994); American Association for the Advance of Science (2002); California Academy of Science (2003); American Astronomical Society (2020); American Academy of Arts & Sciences (2021); Management Board Allen Telescope Array; International Astronomical Union; International Radio Science Union; International Academy of Astronautics; International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life; Women in Aerospace; World Technology Network; Explorers Club Fellow; California Academy of science Fellow (2003)

Awards: 2003 named 1 of 50 Most Important Women in Science, Discover magazine; 2001, Eastchester HS Alumni Association Hall of Fame; 1989 Lifetime Achievement Award, Women in Aerospace; 1997 Person of the Year, Chabot Observatory; 2001 Telluride Tech Festival Award of Technology; 2003 dler Planetarium Women in Space Science Award; 2004 named 1 of 100 Most Influential People in the World, Time Magazine; 2 Public Service medals from NASA; 2005 an asteroid was named after her; 2003 Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization, Wonderfest; 2009 TED Prize; 2012 named to Time 25 Most Influential People in Space; 1998 Women of Achievement Award, Science & Tech category, Women's Fund & San Jose Mercury News; 2015 Liberty Science Center Genius Award; 2019 Guardian of the Year Award, Lifeboat Foundation; 2019 Abiogenesis Hall of Fame

Achievements: known for her work on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI); worked with Stuart Bowyer on the radio-search project SERENDIP and created the corresponding backronym, "Search for Extraterrestrial Radio Emissions from Nearby Developed Intelligent Populations"; was project scientist for NASA's High Resolution Microwave Survey (HRMS) in 1992 and 1993 and subsequently director of Project Phoenix (HRMS reconfigured; a decade-long SETI scrutiny of about 750 nearby star systems, using telescopes in Australia, West Virginia and Puerto Rico) under the auspices of the SETI Institute; was co-creator with Margaret Turnbull of the HabCat in 2002, a principal component of Project Phoenix; co-found the SETI Institute & led the design, construction and science at the SETI Institute’s Allen Telescope Array (ATA); has been actively involved in developing curriculum for children specifically the Life in the Universe series, created 6 science teaching guides for grades 3-9 & Voyages Through Time an integrated high school science curriculum on the fundamental theme of evolution in six modules: Cosmic Evolution, Planetary Evolution, Origin of Life, Evolution of Life, Hominid Evolution and Evolution of Technology;