Keynote Speaker

 

Sara Seager

North Star Distinguished Professor
University of Toronto

Dr. Sara Seager is the North Star Distinguished Professor at the University of Toronto, where she is a professor at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics and in the departments of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Chemistry, and Physics. She holds the Eddie Goldenberg Distinguished Research Chair in Planetary and Molecular Sensing Technologies. She is Professor Emerita at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A pioneer in the study of exoplanets, Professor Seager’s research spans exoplanet atmospheres, the search for signs of life beyond Earth, and the development of novel space mission concepts. She served as Deputy Science Director for the MIT-led NASA Explorer-class mission TESS, led the Starshade Rendezvous Mission concept for direct imaging of Earth-like exoplanets, and leads the Morning Star Missions to Venus, a series of privately and publicly funded missions searching for signs of life in Venus’s atmosphere. Her honors include a MacArthur Fellowship, membership in the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Kavli Prize in Astrophysics, and appointment as an Officer of the Order of Canada. She is the author of The Smallest Lights in the Universe: A Memoir.