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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 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021), and nearly a thousand papers (with
h-index
of 123 and i10-index of 562) 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 also chairs the Advisory Committee for
the Breakthrough
Starshot Initiative (2016-present) and serves 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. Click here
for Loeb's commentaries.
Staff Assistant:
ITC Administrator:
BHI Administrator:
Theory Div. Admin.:
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*Extraterrestrial: 28 editions in 25 languages worldwide (2021).
*Extraterrestrial summary, HMH (2021).
IN THE NEWS:
*Science Is Better Than Politics (February 7, 2023).
*The Existential risk from Fast Bullets During Interstellar Travel (February 5, 2023).
*What Would Have Happened to the Dinosaurs if the Chicxulub Impactor Was a Black Hole? (February 4, 2023).
*Thermonuclear Explosions on Proxima b Are Detectable by JWST (February 3, 2023).
*Searching Around the Milky Way for Partners (February 2, 2023).
*Observing Earth With Love (January 31, 2023).
*Interstellar Objects from Broken Dyson Spheres (January 29, 2023).
*We Are Going to Visit the First Interstellar Meteor (January 27, 2023).
*What Constitutes a Miracle? (January 24, 2023).
*Imagine Interstellar (January 22, 2023).
*Trading Disruptive Science for Imagined Realities (January 20, 2023).
*Thirty Years at Harvard University (January 18, 2023).
*Finding Meaning in a Multi Star Family (January 17, 2023).
*Planck Energy Accelerators (January 16, 2023).
*Intergalactic Travel At No Cost (January 14, 2023).
*Thoughts on the 2022 ODNI UAP Report (January 12, 2023).
*The Most Fantastic Spacecraft Ever Imagined (January 11, 2023).
*The Pleasure of Figuring Out the Location of the First Interstellar Meteor (January 9, 2023).
*The Most Interesting Signals Starts in the Noise (January 8, 2023).
*Should We develop an ET Encounter Manual? (January 6, 2023).
*The Claustrophobia of a Closed Universe (January 4, 2023).
*The Unexplored Dimension of the Universe (January 3, 2023).
*The Siraj & Loeb discovery of first interstellar meteor
was named to CNN's list of 2022's extraordinary cosmic revelations and moments in space exploration
(December 27, 2022).
*The Writing on Our Tombstone (December 31, 2022).
*Was Earth's Surface Ever Completely Frozen? (December 29, 2022).
*Beliefs Versus Evidence in Science and Beyond (December 28, 2022).
*Was Earth Terraformed by Martians? (December 26, 2022).
*No High-Rise Left Standing on Early Mars or Earth (December 25, 2022).
*Seeking Immortality in Space (December 23, 2022).
*Extraterrestrial Heaven: Innovation With No Bureaucracy (December 21, 2022).
*The Next Copernican Revolution (December 20, 2022).
*Our Interstellar Blessing: Live Long and Prosper! (December 19, 2022).
*Interplanetary Soccer on Mars (December 18, 2022).
*Allowing for the Unexpected in an Interstellar Date (December 16, 2022).
*Imaging Hell at High Resolution (December 15, 2022).
*Creating a Transient Star in the Laboratory (December 13, 2022).
*Is Ceres Our Third Hub After the Moon and Mars? (December 12, 2022).
*Why Is Science Important? (December 11, 2022).
*A Million CubeSats in Our Backyard (December 10, 2022).
*The Sky's the Limit on the Speed of Light (December 8, 2022).
*Questions of Life and Death (December 7, 2022).
*Is it Possible to Communicate with Gravitational Waves? (December 6, 2022).
*Cast Your Craft Upon Interstellar Waters (December 5, 2022).
*What Makes the Life of a Physicist Meaningful (December 3, 2022).
*Was Terrestrial Life Seeded by a Gardener (December 2, 2022).
*Life on Titan May Signal Early Life in the Universe (November 30, 2022).
*Collecting Fragments from the First Interstellar Meteor (November 28, 2022).
*Confluence of Natural and Artificial Intelligences (November 28, 2022).
*The Side Academy (November 26, 2022).
*Life as We Know or Do Not Know It (November 25, 2022).
*Cosmic Seeds of the Biggest Black Holes (November 21, 2022).
*A Hint from the Webb Telescope that the First Stars Were Massive (November 19, 2022).
*Are City Lights Still On Around White Dwarfs? (November 18, 2022).
*Earthlings, Unite! (November 16, 2022).
*What Makes Us Human? (November 14, 2022).
*The Proper Way to Swipe Left and Right (November 12, 2022).
*Three Revolutions that Will Change Humanity (November 10, 2022).
*A Black Hole in the Solar System? (November 9, 2022).
*Let It Be ... An Intelligent Signal (November 7, 2022).
*Nerds May Save Humanity (November 6, 2022).
*Aliens, black holes and the end of the universe, h3 podcast (November 4, 2022).
*What Happens in Vegas Does Not Stay in Vegas (November 3, 2022).
*Interview for Numero, Zac Baily (November 2, 2022).
*Old Newspapers in Extraterrestrial Restaurants (November 2, 2022).
*For the Love of Evidence (October 30, 2022).
*Searching for Bread Crumbs Around an Invisible Baby (October 28, 2022).
*From Simplicity to Complexity and Back (October 27, 2022).
*A New Calculation on the Fly to the NASA UAP Study (October 24, 2022).
*Hazards and Benefits of Interstellar Travel (October 23, 2022).
*Gravitational Propulsion (October 20, 2022).
*Near Earth Probes (NEPs) (October 18, 2022).
*Seeds from an Interstellar Dandelion (October 17, 2022).
*Life and Death by Nuclear Energy (October 16, 2022).
*Life is Hard Work, But Luck Helps (October 14, 2022).
*Lost Civilizations from Our Cosmic Past (October 13, 2022).
*A Word of Torah About Extraterrestrials (October 11, 2022).
*Expecting the Unexpected, D'var Torah for Yom Kippur by Rabbi Elyssa Joy Austerklein (October 9, 2022).
*When Visiting the Jungle, We Are Likely to See Animals (October 9, 2022).
*Panel discussion on consciousness, Wisconsin (October 6, 2022).
*Lecture on "Cosmic Conciousness", Wisconsin (October 6, 2022).
*Down to Earth Limits on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in Ukraine (October 4, 2022).
*Rogue Planets (October 3, 2022).
*Permanent Climate Change on Habitable Planets (October 2, 2022).
*Do Astronomers Exist on Habitable Exo-Planets? (September 30, 2022).
*An Extraterrestrial Resolution to the Absurdity of Life (September 28, 2022).
*Understanding Ourselves Thanks to Sentient AI Systems, Medium (September 27, 2022).
*Bright Spot in Orbit Around a Black Hole, Medium (September 25, 2022).
*The Unfamiliar Nature of Interstellar Objects, Medium (September 22, 2022).
*Discovery of a Second Interstellar Meteor: Meter-Size Interstellar Objects Are Much Tougher than Solar System Rocks!, Medium (September 20, 2022).
*Message in an Interstellar Bottle, Medium (September 16, 2022).
*The Universe is Too Big for Us to Ignore It, Medium (September 12, 2022).
*Low-Hanging Fruits of Extraterrestrial Intelligence, Medium (September 11, 2022).
*Post-Pandemic Aspirations, Medium (September 9, 2022).
*Rebooting Earth from a Lunar Backup System, Medium (September 7, 2022).
*Let Many Flowers Bloom, Medium (September 5, 2022).
*Humans Are Not Scientific Detectors, Medium (September 4, 2022).
*A Meeting with `Oumuamua at the Venice Film Festival, Medium (September 3, 2022).
*Advice to Young People, Medium (August 31, 2022).
*You and It, Medium (August 29, 2022).
*Exploring the Unknown, Medium (August 28, 2022).
*Interstellar Dating, Medium (August 26, 2022).
*The Genius in Our Interstellar Class, Medium (August 25, 2022).
*The Last Year in the Life of a Star, Medium (August 24, 2022).
*What is Real?, Medium (August 22, 2022).
*The Scissors of Academic Review, Medium (August 21, 2022).
*Messages Carried by Ripples of Space and Time, Medium (August 20, 2022).
*Gifts of Active Galactic Nuclei, Medium (August 18, 2022).
*PNG Expedition, "All Things Considered", National Public Radio (NPR)(August 16, 2022).
*Wish Upon a Star, Medium (August 16, 2022).
*What Came First: the Astro-Chicken or the Egg?, Medium (August 14, 2022).
*Rising Above the Noise, Medium (August 11, 2022).
*The Enigmatic Universe, Medium (August 10, 2022).
*What is Our Rating in the Cosmic Dating Scene?, Medium (August 7, 2022).
*Thank you for Your Service to Blue Skies Science, Medium (August 5, 2022).
*Fixing Our Worldview With Scientific Knowledge, Medium (August 4, 2022).
*Interstellar Archaeology, Medium (August 4, 2022).
*Our Cosmic Roots Suggest Humility, Medium (July 31, 2022).
*What Doesn't Kill You, Makes You Stronger, Medium (July 28, 2022).
*A Test of Cosmic Inflation and Quantum Gravity, Medium (July 26, 2022).
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