Abraham (Avi) Loeb

Abraham (Avi) Loeb is the Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science at Harvard University and a Bestselling author. 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 9 books, including most recently, Extraterrestrial and Interstellar, as well as nearly a thousand papers 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 Harvard’s Institute for Theory and Computation (2007-present) 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 and a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies (2018-2021). He also chairs the Advisory Committee for the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative (2016-present). In 2012, TIME magazine selected Loeb as one of the 25 most influential people in space.