Jill Tarter

Jill Tarter is an American astronomer known for her work with the SETI institute and the search for extra terrestrial intelligence. She served as the Director for Project Phoenix, the SETI Institute's privately funded continuation of the Targeted Search portion of NASA's High Resolution Microwave Survey, and holds the Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI.  In her research she has melded together old and new engineering skills with a knowledge of the observable universe, in order to conduct thorough observations of the sky through a set of narrowband and pulse sensitive filters never before systematically employed by astronomers.