Abraham (Avi) Loeb is the Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science at Harvard University and a bestselling author (in lists of the New York Times,Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, L'Express and more).
He received a PhD in Physics from
the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem in Israel at age 24 (1980-1986),
led the first international project supported by
the Strategic
Defense Initiative (1983-1988), and was subsequently a
long-term member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton
(1988-1993). Loeb has written 8 books, including most recently, Extraterrestrial (HarperCollins, 2022) and Interstellar (HarperCollins, 2023) and nearly a thousand papers (with
h-index
of 128 and i10-index of 597) on a wide range of topics, including
black holes, the first stars, the search for extraterrestrial life and
the future of the Universe.
Loeb is the Director of
the Institute for Theory and Computation (2007-present)
within the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
, and also serves as the Head of
the Galileo Project (2021-present).
He had been the
longest serving Chair of Harvard's
Department of Astronomy (2011-2020) and the Founding Director of
Harvard's Black
Hole Initiative (2016-2021).
He is
an elected fellow of
the American
Academy of Arts & Sciences,
the American
Physical Society, and
the International Academy of
Astronautics. Loeb is a former member of the
President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) at the White House, a former chair of
the Board
on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies (2018-2021) and
a current member of the Advisory Board for "Einstein: Visualize
the Impossible" of the Hebrew University.
He chaired the Advisory Committee for
the Breakthrough
Starshot Initiative (2015-2024) and served as the Science Theory Director
for
all Initiatives
of the Breakthrough Prize
Foundation. In
2012, TIME
magazine selected Loeb as one of the 25 most influential people in
space and in 2020
Loeb was
selected among the 14 most inspiring Israelis of the last
decade.
In 2024, Loeb was ranked number 3 in publication record and impact of research among all astronomers worldwide over the past 5 years by ScholarGPS.
Click here
for Loeb's commentaries.
Staff Assistant:
ITC Administrator:
BHI Administrator:
Theory Div. Admin.:
*Extraterrestrial: 28 editions in 25 languages worldwide (2021).
*Extraterrestrial summary, HMH (2021).
IN THE NEWS:
*"Practicing Science is a Low-Risk, High-Reward Job" (October 11, 2024).
*"The Future of the Nobel Prize Given the Use of AI in Science" (October 9, 2024).
*"Alien Hunting" (October 9, 2024).
*"What Will the Earth Look Like in a Million Years?" (October 9, 2024).
*"Could the Tiniest Black Holes Be Dark Matter?" (October 7, 2024).
IN THE NEWS:
*"Employing AI for Space Exploration" (October 5, 2024).
*"Why is Innovation Rare in Academia?" (October 3, 2024).
*"Imagination is More Important Than Knowledge" (October 2, 2024).
*"The Gravity of Being Charged or Neutral" (October 1, 2024).
*"The Alien Whisperer" (September 30, 2024).
*"Interstellar Partnership on a Planck Collider" (September 29, 2024).
*"Fermi's Paradox Suggests that We Are Not Attractive on the
Interstellar Dating Scene" (September 28, 2024).
*"The Agony of Playing Einstein in Today's Academia" (September 26, 2024).
*"Searching for Extraterrestrial Life in the Sphere" (September 24, 2024).
*"Wishing to Know More About Alien Intelligence" (September 23, 2024).
*"An Off-World Mindset on Science and Politics" (September 21, 2024).
*"Encounters of the Biological-Technological Kind" (September 18, 2024).
*"What If Aliens Are Not Vegeterians?" (September 16, 2024).
*"Simulation Creators Live in a Reality Bigger Than Their Imagination" (September 15, 2024).
*"I Think, Therefore I Understand Why I Exist" (September 14, 2024).
*"Baking Spherules from a Meoteor" (September 13, 2024).
*"What is the Largest Acceleration in the Universe?" (September 11, 2024).
*"The Limits of What We Can See" (September 10, 2024).
*"A Black Hole Atom" (September 8, 2024).
*"Discovery of an Earth-Mass Planet Near a White Dwarf" (September 6, 2024).
*"From `Star-Wars' to Coexistence Under the Stars" (September 6, 2024).
*"There Are No Illegal Aliens in Interstellar Space" (September 3, 2024).
*"The Bigger, the Better" (September 2, 2024).
*"On Fruit Flies, Whales, Extraterrestrials and Religion" (September 1, 2024).
*"Is Scientific Information Welcome?" (August 30, 2024).
*"How Do Mini Black Holes Accrete?" (August 29, 2024).
*"Discovery of a Faint Red Source Speeding at a Million Miles Per Hour Towards the Galactic Center" (August 27, 2024).
*"Residents of the Outer Solar System" (August 26, 2024).
*"Residents of the Outer Solar System" (August 26, 2024).
*"A 25-Year Old Insight About the First Billion Years of the Cosmos" (August 25, 2024).
*"Are Both Lue Elizondo and AARO Sincere in Their Reports About UAPs?" (August 23, 2024).
*"Our IQ Will Be Higher in the Future" (August 22, 2024).
*"An Ideal Engine for Clean Energy" (August 21, 2024).
*"Is Dark Matter Made of Primordial Black Holes?" (August 20, 2024).
*"Interstellar Sun-divers" (August 18, 2024).
*"Where Are the Grabby Aliens?" (August 16, 2024).
*"A Tale of Three Accelerations for `Oumuamua" (August 15, 2024).
*"Fishing with LSST in the Ocean of Interstellar Space" (August 14, 2024).
*"A Recipe for Making a Black Hole Out of Light" (August 12, 2024).
*"Dandelion Spacecraft" (August 11, 2024).
*"A Breath of Fresh Air on the Moon" (August 10, 2024).
*"No Relativistic UAPs More Massive than 50 Megatons Passed Near Earth Over the Past Decade!" (August 7, 2024).
*"Illumination of a Planet by a Mini-Black-Hole Moon as a Technological Signature" (August 5, 2024).
*"Who Will Represent Humanity in Interstellar Space?" (August 4, 2024).
*"My AI Avatar" (August 2, 2024).
*"Oumuamua Was Young!" (July 31, 2024).
*"Surviving as a Scientist Among Believers and Skeptics" (July 30, 2024).
*"The Pleasure of Collaborating with Young Minds" (July 29, 2024).
*"How Rare Are We?" (July 27, 2024).
*"Is Intelligence the Same on Exoplanets?" (July 25, 2024).
*"Death by a Gamma-Ray Burst from a Milky-Way BOAT" (July 24, 2024).
*"Harmony of the Heavens Brough Down to Earth" (July 22, 2024).
*"Healing a Broken World by an Out-Of-This-World Encounter" (July 20, 2024).
*"What is the Highest Spacetime Curvature Near Us?" (July 19, 2024).
*"We Are Going Back to Interstellar Meteor 1" (July 18, 2024).
*"Interstellar Broken Arrows" (July 17, 2024).
*"Was LUCA the First Solar-System Astronaut 4.2-Billion Years Ago?" (July 14, 2024).
*"Is the End Near?" (July 13, 2024).
*"Make science, Not War!" (July 11, 2024).
*"AI Avatars as a Substitute for Tombstones" (July 9, 2024).
*"The Most Romantic Question in Science" (July 7, 2024).
*"A New Source of Drift for Geostationary Satellites" (July 6, 2024).
*"Viewing AI as Artificial Intelligence" (July 3, 2024).
*"Tiny Red Rubies in the Sky" (July 2, 2024).
*"Is the Smartest Person Ever Born Alive Today?" (June 30, 2024).
*"Forbidden Thoughts" (June 28, 2024).
*"The Inevitable Death of the Earth Inside the Sun" (June 26, 2024).
*"Artificial Intelligence in Space" (June 25, 2024).
*"Cosmic Graitude" (June 23, 2024).
*"Dark Matter is Not Electrically Charged!" (June 21, 2024).
*"Separating Science from Fiction" (June 20, 2024).
*"The Nature of Time" (June 18, 2024).
*"The Anatomy of Black Swans" (June 17, 2024).
*"Aspiring to be God is Not an Arrogant Proposition" (June 16, 2024).
*"Discussing Extraterrestrials on Capitol Hill in Washington DC" (June 14, 2024).
*"Searching for City Lights on Exoplanets with NASA's Habitable World Observatory" (June 12, 2024).
*"The Role of Intelligence in the Cosmos" (June 10, 2024).
*"Seeking Superhuman Intelligence on Earth and Beyond" (June 9, 2024).
*"Transitions in Gaining New Knowledge" (June 8, 2024).
*"A Blind Date With Materials from Space" (June 6, 2024).
*"Speaking at the Central Library of Aristotle University" (June 4, 2024).
*"What is the Job Definition of God?" (June 2, 2024).
IN THE NEWS:
*"Where Will Voyager Be in a Billion Years?" (June 1, 2024).
*"The Milky-Way Adds an Hour to Our Life" (May 30, 2024).
*"Interstellar Curiosity" (May 29, 2024).
*"Antimatter Engines" (May 28, 2024).
*"Is Extraterrestrial Intervention Neede for Peace and Prosperity on Earth?" (May 26, 2024).
*"Will ET or AI Represent Our First Encounter with Superhuman
Intelligence?" (May 25, 2024).
*"Fast Meteors Are Not Always Interstellar" (May 23, 2024).
*"A Musical Piece About `Oumuamua" (May 21, 2024).
*"Surviving as an Extremophile in the Acidic Life of Academia" (May 21, 2024).
*"Are Dyson Spheres Real?" (May 20, 2024).
*"An Argument Against Speeding Tickets" (May 19, 2024).
*"For the Love of the Unfamiliar" (May 18, 2024).
*"What Does It Mean to Be Intelligent?" (May 16, 2024).
*"The Colorful Mass Loss of the Sun" (May 15, 2024).
*"Elon Musk's Uncertainty About Aliens Can Be Resolved by the Scientific Method" (May 13, 2024).
*"Going Against the Wind" (May 11, 2024).
*"Is the Observed Jitter of the Sun Induced by Asteroids and Not Gravitational Waves?" (May 9, 2024).
*"Three Paradigm Shifts About Rocks: Ridicules Which Turned Into Cherished Scientific Truths" (May 6, 2024).
*"A Free Ride Away from Earth" (May 5, 2024).
*"The Nearest Black Hole to Earth" (May 4, 2024).
*"Did an Interstellar Gardener Seed Earth with erobic Bacteria?" (May 2, 2024).
*"Smoke and Mirrors Versus Signatures of Extraterrestrial Life" (April 30, 2024).
*"Do Magnetic Monopoles Exist?" (April 30, 2024).
*"Fact-Based AI as a Tool for Education" (April 28, 2024).
*"On Negative Mass, Time Travel and Aliens" (April 27, 2024).
*"Our Biggest Existential Risk is Superficiality" (April 26, 2024).
*"Complexity Nurtures Intelligence" (April 24, 2024).
*"Shining Light on Cosmic Hydrogen" (April 22, 2024).
*"Our Cosmic Exodus" (April 21, 2024).
*"The Art of Being Right in Finding a Message in a Bottle" (April 19, 2024).
*"My Unreheased TED Talk" (April 17, 2024).
*"When Did Life Start in the Universe?" (April 15, 2024).
*"Our Interstellar Cradle Allows Us To Become Interstellar Gardeners" (April 13, 2024).
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