Lisa Kaltenegger

My name is Lisa Kaltenegger and I am working at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) in Boston with Wesley Traub (CfA/JPL) on extrasolar planet research, especially on the definition,detection and evolution of biomarkers in a planet's atmosphere. I got an MS degree in astronomy in 1999 at the Karl Franzens University (Austria) doing research at the IAC in Spain on a ground based search for brown dwarfs and extrasolar giant planets with Rafael Rebolo. Right after I specialized for my ME (Physics) on biophysics. I did the research for my PhD in astrophysics at the European Space Agency's Science and Technology Center (ESTEC) in Holland as part of the group on the design of the Darwin mission.

Darwin is an IR free-flying interferometer in space searching for earth-like planets around a sample of 165 stars in its mission lifetime, search for biomarkers in their atmospheres, and undertake comparative planetology (a mission similar in its objectives to NASA's TPF-I). 

There are a lot of fascinating issues to be discussed, explored and discovered in the field of extrasolar planet search and I believe it is an amazing time to be working on this.

webpage: http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~lkaltenegger