Jill Tarter

Jill Tarter
Tarter at TED. Photograph by Steve Jurvetson.
Born	(1944-01-16) January 16, 1944 (age 73)
Nationality	United States
Alma mater	University of California at Berkeley Cornell University
Occupation	Astronomer

Jill Cornell Tarter (born January 16, 1944) is an American astronomer and the former of the Center for SETI Research, holding the Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI at the SETI Institute.

Tarter received her undergraduate education at Cornell University, where she earned a Bachelor of Engineering Physics Degree, and a Master's degree and PhD in astronomy from the University of California at Berkeley.

Tarter has worked on a number of major scientific projects, most relating to the search for extraterrestrial life. As a graduate student, she worked on the radio-search project SERENDIP, and created the corresponding backronym, "Search for Extraterrestrial Radio Emissions from Nearby Developed Intelligent Populations". She was project scientist for NASA's High Resolution Microwave Survey (HRMS) in 1992 and 1993 and subsequently director of Project Phoenix (HRMS reconfigured) under the auspices of the SETI Institute. She was co-creator with Margaret Turnbull of the HabCat in 2002, a principal component of Project Phoenix. Tarter has published dozens of technical papers and lectures extensively both on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence and the need for proper science education. She is credited with coining the term "brown dwarf" for the classification of stars with insufficient mass to sustain hydrogen fusion. She has spent 35 years in the quest for extraterrestrial life and announced her retirement in 2012.

In 2011, Tarter delivered a talk, "Intelligent Life in the Universe: Is Anybody Out There?", at the first Starmus Festival in the Canary Islands. The Festival, founded by astronomer Garik Israelian, is a blend of astronomy, allied sciences, music, and art, and Tarter subsequently joined the Starmus Board of Directors, along with Israelian, astrophysicist and Queen founding guitarist Brian May, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, and others. Her 2011 talk was published in the book Starmus: 50 Years of Man in Space. Jill Tarter is a member of the CuriosityStream Advisory Board.