Student lunch with SETI's Jill Tarter

Dr. Jill Tarter, Director of the Center for SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Research at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California was on campus in November as a Physics Department colloquium speaker. WISE and the Physics Department sponsored a student lunch with Dr. Tarter.

Dr. Tarter’s work has brought her wide recognition in the scientific and educational community. Many recognize her as the character portrayed by Jodie Foster in the movie Contact. Dr. Tarter spoke informally with students about her research and career path. She talked about techniques and equipment used to search for radio signals and procedures used to ensure suspect signals are not generated from earth. Tarter also questioned students about their beliefs in the possibility of intelligent life beyond earth.

Her colloquium talk was titled, "The Allen Telescope Array: A Wide-angle, Panchromatic Radio Camera for SETI and Radio Astronomy." The Allen Telescope Array is a new instrument being built for SETI in collaboration with UC Berkely that will, for the first time, will allow a targeted SETI search to proceed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

For more information on the Allen Telescope Array, please visit: http://www.seti.org/site/pp.aspx?c=ktJ2J9MMIsE&b=179290.

December 2006 eNews

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