Towards a scientific and societal agenda on extra-terrestrial life

Martin Dominik is a Royal Society University Research Fellow at the School of Physics & Astronomy of the University of St Andrews. He completed his doctorate ( Dr rer. nat.) at the University of Dortmund (Germany) in 1996, where he was dragged from theoretical physics into astronomy with new developments in the emerging field of 'gravitational lensing', i.e. the gravitational bending of light. Martin subsequently worked at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore (MD, U.S.A), supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG), and as Marie Curie Fellow at the Kapteyn Institute of the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (The Netherlands). A serious medical condition encountered in 2000 meant that he had to start re-building his career with the move to St Andrews in 2003. Since 1993, Martin's research has focused on applications of the gravitational microlensing effect, and in particular on its potential for studying planets orbiting stars other than the Sun. His work as a team co-leader was essential for detecting OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb, which, with estimated 5 Earth masses, was considered to be the least massive extra-solar planet orbiting a star known at the time of the announcement of this discovery, and provided the first observational hint that Earth-like planets are common in the Universe. Martin is a strong advocate of communication being an essential part of science, and science being an integral part of society. He turned the hunt for planets by gravitational microlensing into a public live event, and most prominently showcased this at the 2008 Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition, where he engaged with visitors in debates about the detection of extra-terrestrial life and the role of humankind in the Universe.

Lisa Kaltenegger is a Group Leader at the MPIA, Heidelberg for extrasolar planet characterisation, lecturer at Harvard Astrophysics Department and Research Associate at SAO. Her work focuses on characterizing extrasolar rocky planets, modeling the atmospheric spectral fingerprints of terrestrial planets and specially indicators for life on them, depending on geological cycles, biological environments and age of evolution. She is a Co-I on the MIT NASA Astrobiology Center and part of the EC of NASA’s Extrasolar Planet Analysis Group.

Lisa holds a PhD in astrophysics from Karl Franzens University Graz from 2003, a MSci in astronomy from 1999 and a MEng from University of Technology Graz from 2001, where she specialized in biophysics/biomedicine.

Recent awards include the Tinsley Visiting Scholarship at University Texas Austin 2009, Paul Hertelendy Prize 2007 for outstanding young scientist at the CfA, America's Young Innovator 2007 (Smithsonian Magazine), Highest academic honours of Austria for academic achievements (awarded personally by the Austrian President, 2005).

Nick received his PhD. in Geochemistry from Stony Brook University in 2007. He has been a science team member of the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Mission since 2004, when he worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California to plan and execute science experiments with the rovers. In 2007, he became an Origins Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University, where he was part of Harvard’s Origins of Life Initiative and the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. In 2009, Nick was elected a Research Fellow at Churchill College, and is based in the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge. His research is focused on unraveling the chemistry and paleo-climate recorded in ancient sediments on Earth and Mars and how such conditions have influenced the origin and evolution of life.

John Elliott is a Reader in Intelligence Engineering at Leeds Metropolitan University in the UK. He is a member of the International Academy of Astronautics SETI Permanent Study Group and Post Detection Task Force, as well as the Acta Astronautica Special Editor for SETI and Searching for Life Signatures journals.

His research into computation modelling of communication crosses many boundaries and disciplines: from human language ‘universals’, dolphin communication, architecture of the mind and multidimensional models in space-time for countering crime and terrorism to an ethical decision engine for robot soldiers, sense synesthesia and global impact strategies for post detection decipherment of an extra-terrestrial signal to manage dissemination and societal impact. 

Martin Dominik is a Royal Society University Research Fellow at the School of Physics & Astronomy of the University of St Andrews. He completed his doctorate ( Dr rer. nat.) at the University of Dortmund (Germany) in 1996, where he was dragged from theoretical physics into astronomy with new developments in the emerging field of 'gravitational lensing', i.e. the gravitational bending of light. Martin subsequently worked at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore (MD, U.S.A), supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG), and as Marie Curie Fellow at the Kapteyn Institute of the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (The Netherlands). A serious medical condition encountered in 2000 meant that he had to start re-building his career with the move to St Andrews in 2003. Since 1993, Martin's research has focused on applications of the gravitational microlensing effect, and in particular on its potential for studying planets orbiting stars other than the Sun. His work as a team co-leader was essential for detecting OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb, which, with estimated 5 Earth masses, was considered to be the least massive extra-solar planet orbiting a star known at the time of the announcement of this discovery, and provided the first observational hint that Earth-like planets are common in the Universe. Martin is a strong advocate of communication being an essential part of science, and science being an integral part of society. He turned the hunt for planets by gravitational microlensing into a public live event, and most prominently showcased this at the 2008 Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition, where he engaged with visitors in debates about the detection of extra-terrestrial life and the role of humankind in the Universe.

Dr James Benford is President of Microwave Sciences, which deals with High Power Microwave systems from conceptual designs to hardware. He has been active in advanced research in private companies and in transitioning research results into commercial products. In 1997, he was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering for "transferring high power microwave sources and systems into custom commercial products". Clients include private companies, government agencies, and universities. His has a PhD in Physics from UCSD. He has written 135 scientific papers and 6 books on physics topics, including the textbook, High Power Microwaves, now in its 2nd edition.

David Brin’s novels have been translated into more than twenty languages, including New York Times best-sellers that have won Hugo, Nebula and other awards. His 1989 thriller Earth foreshadowed cyberwarfare the Web, global warming and Gulf Coast flooding. A 1998 Kevin Costner film was loosely adapted from Brin's novel The Postman. Foundation's Triumph brought a grand finale to Isaac Asimov's famed Foundation Universe. Brin's groundbreaking hardcover graphic novel The Life Eaters was an international sensation.

Brin is also an astrophysicist and futurist who appears frequently on science programmes (Life After People, The Universe, The Architechs) discussing topics as diverse as astronomy, SETI, surveillance technology, nanotechnology and national defence. His non-fiction book The Transparent Society: Will Technology Make Us Choose Between Freedom and Privacy? won the 2000 Freedom of Speech Award of the American Library Association, and a prize from the McGannon Foundation for public service in communications. As a speaker, David Brin shares unique insights, serious and humorous, about ways that changing technology may affect our future lives.

Stephane Dumas obtained a M.Sc. in Physics in 2009 from Universite Laval, Quebec City, Canada studying the teledection of biomarkers using infrared spectroscopy. Dumas has worked in the field of computer modeling (of physical based phenomena) for the past 12 years and in computer programming for the last 20. He is involved in METI since 1999, has participated in Evpatoria 1999 and 2003 and is the author of several papers on SETI, METI and astrobiology. He is the SETI League coordinator for eastern Canada and is involved in several activities of public outreach for astronomy and science.

Author of over one hundred published works, Michael Michaud was a U.S. Foreign Service Officer for 32 years before turning full-time to writing. During his diplomatic career, he served as Director of the State Department's Office of Advanced Technology and as Counselor for Science, Technology, and Environment at the American embassies in Paris and Tokyo.

Michaud led the successful negotiation of bilateral science and technology agreements, played an important role in the revival of U.S.-Soviet space cooperation, and was one of the initiators of U.S.-Soviet anti-satellite arms control negotiations. He represented the Department of State in interagencty space policy forums and testified before Congressional committees four times on space-related issues.

He is the author of two research-driven books, one a study of debates about possible future contact with an extra-terrestrial civilization and the other a study of the American pro-space movement.

He has written several hundred popular magazine and Web articles on various topics in astronomy, technology, film and television. He lectures on astronomy and other subjects at Stanford and other venues in the Bay Area, and for the last six years, has been a Distinquished Speaker for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He is also Chair of the International Academy of Astronautics’ SETI Permanent Study Group. Every week he hosts the SETI Institute’s science radio show, Are We Alone

Seth has edited and contributed to a half dozen books. His most recent tome is Confessions of an Alien Hunter: A Scientist’s Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence (National Geographic)."

Dr Alexander L. Zaitsev is the Chief Scientist, Kotel’nikov Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics, Russian Academy of Science.

Zaitsev’s career has focused on three main topics: direct digital synthesizers of coherent radar signals, used in the study of inner planets (the subject of his Ph. D. thesis, 1981); near-Earth asteroid radar research (the subject of his Prof. dissertation, 1997); interstellar radio messaging, his current field of research.

Zaitsev supervised the transmission of the 1999 and 2003 “Cosmic Calls” from Evpatoria Planetary Radar, under his scientific leadership, a youth group in Moscow composed and broadcast a “Teen Age Message to ETI”. In 2002 Zaitsev advanced an idea of “METI@home”, an interstellar radio message composition by the public, which are using special web site, and in 2008 he was a scientific consultant of the “A Message from Earth” project, where the METI@home ideas were embodied. Zaitsev proposed three-section structure of interstellar radio messages, coined the acronym METI (Messaging to Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence), formulated the “SETI Paradox”, which says: “Searching for extra-terrestrial intelligence is meaningless if no one in the Universe feels the need in sending of interstellar messages”.

In 1995, the International Astronomical Union named the asteroid 1976 GH2 as 6075 Zajtsev. 

Biography not yet available

Dr Douglas Vakoch is the Director of Interstellar Message Composition at the SETI Institute, where he researches ways that different civilizations might create messages that could be transmitted across interstellar space. Dr Vakoch leads the SETI Institute’s online research projects Earth Speaks and La Tierra Habla, which gather messages from around the globe that people would want to send to other worlds.

 Dr Vakoch serves as chair of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) Study Group on Interstellar Message Construction, which examines the challenges of creating messages intelligible to extra-terrestrial civilizations. He also chairs the IAA Study Group on Communication with Extra-terrestrial Intelligence, also known as Active SETI. As a member of the International Institute of Space Law, he examines international policy issues related to sending messages to other civilizations.

With degrees in comparative religion, history and philosophy of science, and psychology, Dr Vakoch also studies the broader societal implications of the search for life beyond Earth. As an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, he is particularly interested in how we can communicate what it means to be human to other civilizations.

Biography not yet available

Dr Dick is the recipient of the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, the Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Medal, the NASA Group Achievement Award for his role in NASA’s multidisciplinary program in astrobiology, the NASA Group Achievement Award for the book America in Space, and the 2006 LeRoy E. Doggett Prize for Historical Astronomy of the American Astronomical Society. He has served as Chairman of the Historical Astronomy Division of the American Astronomical Society, as President of the History of Astronomy Commission of the International Astronomical Union, and as President of the Philosophical Society of Washington. In 2009 the International Astronomical Union designated minor planet 6544 stevendick in his honour."

Professor Frans G. von der Dunk holds the Harvey and Susan Perlman Alumni / Othmer Chair of Space Law at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He also is Director of Black Holes BV, a Leiden-based consultancy in space law and policy. He was awarded the IISL Distinguished Service Award in October 2004 and the IAA Social Science Award in October 2006. In the summer of 2008, he was nominated, as the first lawyer ever, Member of the ESF’s ESSC. He was also the sole lawyer on the Panel on Asteroid Threat Mitigation established by ASE in 2007. As of 2006, he is the Series Editor of ‘Studies in Space Law’.

He has served as adviser to the Dutch Government, several foreign Governments, the European Commission, ESA, the UN, the OECD, various space agencies, as well as a number of other entities and companies.

He is inter alia Director Public Relations of IISL, Member of the Board of ECSL, and Member for the Netherlands in the ILA Committee on Space Law. He is also Member of the International Editorial Board of ‘Space Policy’. Further memberships include: IAA, ABILA, and AIAA.

Dr Margaret Race is an ecologist at SETI Institute (Mountain View, California), who works with NASA on astrobiology and planetary protection. She is also actively involved in the analysis of societal, ethical and policy implications of space exploration and the possible discovery of extra-terrestrial life. Over the past decade, she has served on numerous US and international studies on avoiding forward and back contamination on both robotic and human missions in the Solar System. In addition to her research and analytical work, Dr Race is actively involved in science education and outreach about astrobiology through the mass media, schools, museums, and public presentations.

Dr Race received her BA degree (Biology) and MS degree (Energy Management and Policy) from the University of Pennsylvania, and her Ph.D. (Ecology) from the University of California at Berkeley. Previously, she has been a Professor and researcher at Stanford University (Human Biology Program), Assistant Dean at UC Berkeley (College of Natural Resources), and Senior Science Policy Analyst at University of California Office of the President. 

Author of over one hundred published works, Michael Michaud was a U.S. Foreign Service Officer for 32 years before turning full-time to writing. During his diplomatic career, he served as Director of the State Department's Office of Advanced Technology and as Counselor for Science, Technology, and Environment at the American embassies in Paris and Tokyo.

Michaud led the successful negotiation of bilateral science and technology agreements, played an important role in the revival of U.S.-Soviet space cooperation, and was one of the initiators of U.S.-Soviet anti-satellite arms control negotiations. He represented the Department of State in interagencty space policy forums and testified before Congressional committees four times on space-related issues.

He is the author of two research-driven books, one a study of debates about possible future contact with an extra-terrestrial civilization and the other a study of the American pro-space movement.

Iván Almár, DSc, is Professor Emeritus of Astronomy at Konkoly Observatory of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study, Budapest, Hungary. He is Honorary President of the Hungarian Astronautical Society. He worked in space research for more than 50 years on satellite tracking, upper-atmospheric research and satellite geodesy. Member of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) since 1984, and was chairman of its Space and Society Commission in 2003-2005. He was Vice President of the International Astronautical Federation in 1982-1984. As guest editor of the IAA Multilingual Space Dictionary he received the IAA Book Award in 2001. Member of the SETI Committee since 1983, and was its co-chairman between 1986 and 2001. In 2008 he presented the Billingham Cutting-Edge Lecture at the International Astronautical Congress in Glasgow, and has received the Giordano Bruno Memorial Award of the SETI League. In January 2010 he was one of the invited speakers at the Discussion Meeting of the Royal Society on ‘The detection of extra-terrestrial life and the consequences for science and society’. 

Dr Douglas Vakoch is the Director of Interstellar Message Composition at the SETI Institute, where he researches ways that different civilizations might create messages that could be transmitted across interstellar space. Dr Vakoch leads the SETI Institute’s online research projects Earth Speaks and La Tierra Habla, which gather messages from around the globe that people would want to send to other worlds.

 Dr Vakoch serves as chair of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) Study Group on Interstellar Message Construction, which examines the challenges of creating messages intelligible to extra-terrestrial civilizations. He also chairs the IAA Study Group on Communication with Extra-terrestrial Intelligence, also known as Active SETI. As a member of the International Institute of Space Law, he examines international policy issues related to sending messages to other civilizations.

With degrees in comparative religion, history and philosophy of science, and psychology, Dr Vakoch also studies the broader societal implications of the search for life beyond Earth. As an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, he is particularly interested in how we can communicate what it means to be human to other civilizations.

Kathryn Denning is an anthropologist and archaeologist. At the broadest level, her research examines scholarly and popular ideas about Others, their relationships to us, and how we can know them. The Others she studies include the ancient (in archaeology), the animal (in zoos), and the alien (in SETI). Much of her recent work has focused upon SETI, particularly scientists' conceptions of the alien Other. Her published work includes examinations of SETI researchers’ use of Earth civilizations and history as analogues for ETI, ideas about how one might communicate with a radically different intelligence, the interstellar transmission debate, and efforts to prepare for a detection. Her current projects (jointly with, variously, Lori Marino, Margaret Race, Douglas Vakoch, Paul Davies, the SETI Institute, and the NASA Astrobiology Institute) focus upon the evolution of intelligence as applicable to SETI, and the social issues connected to astrobiology and SETI. Denning is a member of the IAA SETI Permanent Study Group.

Biography not yet available

John Zarnecki studied Physics at the University of Cambridge, followed by a PhD at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London.

Subsequently, he has had over thirty years experience of space research spanning a number of space missions, including sounding rockets, Earth-orbiting missions and interplanetary flights, at British Aerospace, the University of Kent and now the Open University. These have included a range of high profile space missions including the Hubble Space Telescope, the Giotto mission which flew past Halley’s comet and the Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn & Titan.

He is a Vice-President of the Royal Astronomical Society and a member of a variety of national and international bodies in the field of Space Research. He is also the holder of awards from NASA and ESA (the European Space Agency) and inaugural winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Individual Achievement in UK Space Research in 2005.

He is currently involved in developing several instruments for possible future space missions to Mars, the Moon, Titan and Europa.

Dr Dick is the recipient of the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, the Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Medal, the NASA Group Achievement Award for his role in NASA’s multidisciplinary program in astrobiology, the NASA Group Achievement Award for the book America in Space, and the 2006 LeRoy E. Doggett Prize for Historical Astronomy of the American Astronomical Society. He has served as Chairman of the Historical Astronomy Division of the American Astronomical Society, as President of the History of Astronomy Commission of the International Astronomical Union, and as President of the Philosophical Society of Washington. In 2009 the International Astronomical Union designated minor planet 6544 stevendick in his honour."

Clément Vidal is a researcher at the Free University of Brussels (VUB). He has a background in Philosophy, Mathematical Logic (Master's degrees at the University Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, France) and Cognitive Sciences (MSc, EHESS/ENS/Paris 5/Paris 6, France). He has broad interdisciplinary interests in the philosophy of science, complexity sciences, cognitive sciences, praxeology, etc. His current research at the transdisciplinary Center Leo Apostel focuses on the origin and far future of the universe. In 2008, he co-founded with John Smart, the Evo Devo Universe research community. He edited the special issue of the first international conference on The Evolution and Development of the Universe (EDU 2008). Twenty-two authors contributed to this volume composed of peer-reviewed articles, commentaries and responses.

Born in Liverpool, England, Dr Stephen Baxter has degrees in mathematics and engineering, has worked as a teacher in mathematics and physics, and since 1987 has published over forty books, mostly science fiction novels, which have been published internationally and have received many awards. He is a Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society, President of the British Science Fiction Association, and Vice-President of the HG Wells Society. He is also a member of the Post-detection Task Group of the IAA SETI permanent study group.

Ted Peters is Professor of Systematic Theology at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary and the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, USA. He co-edits the journal Theology and Science published by Routledge for the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences. He is author of Science, Theology and Ethics (Ashgate 2003); The Evolution of Terrestrial and Extra-terrestrial Life (Pandora 2008); and Anticipating Omega (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2008). He is co-author of Theological and Scientific Commentary on Darwin’s Origin of Species (Abingdon 2009).

John M. Smart is an evolutionary developmental systems theorist. He is an associate professor at the University of Advancing Technology (Tempe, AZ), an affiliate of the ECCO research group at VUB, and a co-founder of the international Evo Devo Universe research community (Evodevouniverse.com) exploring evolutionary and developmental processes of change at the universal and subsystem scales. His personal website (since 1999) on accelerating technological change is AccelerationWatch.com.

John has a B.S. in business administration from UC Berkeley, an M.S.-eq. in physiology and medicine from U.C. San Diego School of Medicine, and an M.S. in futures studies from the University of Houston. He studied systems theory at UCSD under the mentorship of James Grier Miller (Living Systems, 1978), who mentored under process philosopher Alfred North Whitehead. 

Biography not yet available

Iván Almár, DSc, is Professor Emeritus of Astronomy at Konkoly Observatory of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study, Budapest, Hungary. He is Honorary President of the Hungarian Astronautical Society. He worked in space research for more than 50 years on satellite tracking, upper-atmospheric research and satellite geodesy. Member of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) since 1984, and was chairman of its Space and Society Commission in 2003-2005. He was Vice President of the International Astronautical Federation in 1982-1984. As guest editor of the IAA Multilingual Space Dictionary he received the IAA Book Award in 2001. Member of the SETI Committee since 1983, and was its co-chairman between 1986 and 2001. In 2008 he presented the Billingham Cutting-Edge Lecture at the International Astronautical Congress in Glasgow, and has received the Giordano Bruno Memorial Award of the SETI League. In January 2010 he was one of the invited speakers at the Discussion Meeting of the Royal Society on ‘The detection of extra-terrestrial life and the consequences for science and society’. 

Claudio Maccone was awarded a Council of Europe Higher Education Scholarship by the British Council in 1974 to read for a PhD. at the Department of Mathematics of the University of London King’s College, where he obtained his PhD in 1980.

Maccone’s first book was published in1994 entitled Telecommunications, KLT and Relativity. His second book,The Sun as a Gravitational Lens: Proposed Space Mission, won the 1999 Book Award for the Engineering Sciences Award by the International Academy of Astronautics. Since then, has published over eighty scientific and technical papers, most of them in Acta Astronautica.

In 2000, Maccone was elected Co-Vice Chair of the SETI Committee of the International Academy of Astronautics and appointed Coordinator of the IAA Cosmic Study on the Lunar Farside Radio Lab. He was elected a Full Member of the International Academy of Astronautics in 2001.

In this same year, asteroid 11264 was named Claudiomaccone in his honour by the International Astronomical Union (IAU).

In 2008, Maccone was responsible for organizing the international SETI conference First IAA Symposium on Searching for Life Signatures at UNESCO in Paris,

He was recently named Technical Director of the International Academy of Astronautics for Scientific Space Exploration.

Professor Richard Crowther of the Science and Technology Facilities Council was, until April 2008, Head of Space Technology at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. His primary research interests are man-made orbital debris, planetary protection, and near Earth objects (asteroids and comets that pass close to the Earth). He is a consultant to the European Space Agency on the subjects of orbital debris and planetary protection (biological contamination). He has acted as co-chair of the COSPAR Panel on environmentally damaging acivities in space and is the Head of the UK delegations to the Inter-Agency Debris Committee and the United Nations Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, previously acting as Chair of the UN Working Group on Near Earth Objects within the Committee for the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. He is a delegate to the European Space Agency's International Relations Committee.

Professor Frans G. von der Dunk holds the Harvey and Susan Perlman Alumni / Othmer Chair of Space Law at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He also is Director of Black Holes BV, a Leiden-based consultancy in space law and policy. He was awarded the IISL Distinguished Service Award in October 2004 and the IAA Social Science Award in October 2006. In the summer of 2008, he was nominated, as the first lawyer ever, Member of the ESF’s ESSC. He was also the sole lawyer on the Panel on Asteroid Threat Mitigation established by ASE in 2007. As of 2006, he is the Series Editor of ‘Studies in Space Law’.

He has served as adviser to the Dutch Government, several foreign Governments, the European Commission, ESA, the UN, the OECD, various space agencies, as well as a number of other entities and companies.

He is inter alia Director Public Relations of IISL, Member of the Board of ECSL, and Member for the Netherlands in the ILA Committee on Space Law. He is also Member of the International Editorial Board of ‘Space Policy’. Further memberships include: IAA, ABILA, and AIAA.

Professor Mazlan Othman was educated in Malaysia and studied Physics at the University of Otago, New Zealand, becoming the first woman at the University to receive a Ph.D. in Astrophysics. She returned to Malaysia as her country’s first astrophysicist and set about establishing university courses in astronomy, laboratories for undergraduate and post-graduate training and actively promoting the space sciences. Her campaigning to promote public awareness of astronomy led to a position with the Prime Minister’s Department to direct the design and construction of the National Planetarium. Whilst here, she also established the nation’s Space Science Studies Division and, as Director-General, initiated the National Microsatellite Programme, which gave birth to TiungSAT-1.

In 1999, she was appointment Director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and, in 2002, returned to Malaysia to set up and lead the National Space Agency. As Director-General of the National Space Agency, her strategic initiatives included instituting national level discussions and coordination on space-related activities, formulation of the national space programme, law and policy. During her tenure, she directed the establishment of the National Space Centre, which houses TT&C, AIT, and calibration research facilities. She also instituted the Langkawi National Observatory. In 2007, she returned to the post of Director of UNOOSA. In 2009, she was appointed Deputy Director General of the United Nations Office at Vienna (UNOV).

Othman also has a keen interest in fusing the sciences with the arts and initiated the Science-Inspired Arts Camp jointly with the National Art Gallery, bringing together prominent artists and scientists. She was also instrumental in the production of two large-format film science documentaries and has produced four planetarium shows. Othman has published and presented numerous academic papers, not only on astrophysics but also on sustainable development and many aspects of management. She is a fellow of several professional bodies.

Dr Margaret Race is an ecologist at SETI Institute (Mountain View, California), who works with NASA on astrobiology and planetary protection. She is also actively involved in the analysis of societal, ethical and policy implications of space exploration and the possible discovery of extra-terrestrial life. Over the past decade, she has served on numerous US and international studies on avoiding forward and back contamination on both robotic and human missions in the Solar System. In addition to her research and analytical work, Dr Race is actively involved in science education and outreach about astrobiology through the mass media, schools, museums, and public presentations.

Dr Race received her BA degree (Biology) and MS degree (Energy Management and Policy) from the University of Pennsylvania, and her Ph.D. (Ecology) from the University of California at Berkeley. Previously, she has been a Professor and researcher at Stanford University (Human Biology Program), Assistant Dean at UC Berkeley (College of Natural Resources), and Senior Science Policy Analyst at University of California Office of the President. 

Dr Douglas Vakoch is the Director of Interstellar Message Composition at the SETI Institute, where he researches ways that different civilizations might create messages that could be transmitted across interstellar space. Dr Vakoch leads the SETI Institute’s online research projects Earth Speaks and La Tierra Habla, which gather messages from around the globe that people would want to send to other worlds.

 Dr Vakoch serves as chair of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) Study Group on Interstellar Message Construction, which examines the challenges of creating messages intelligible to extra-terrestrial civilizations. He also chairs the IAA Study Group on Communication with Extra-terrestrial Intelligence, also known as Active SETI. As a member of the International Institute of Space Law, he examines international policy issues related to sending messages to other civilizations.

With degrees in comparative religion, history and philosophy of science, and psychology, Dr Vakoch also studies the broader societal implications of the search for life beyond Earth. As an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, he is particularly interested in how we can communicate what it means to be human to other civilizations.

Biography not yet available