Avi Loeb

Abraham(Avi) Loebis the Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science at Harvard University and a bestselling author (in lists of the NewYork 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).

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Loeb has written 9 books, including most recently, Extraterrestrial and Interstellar, as well as over a thousand scientific papers(with h-index of 133 and i10-index of 631)on a wide range of topics, including black holes, the first stars, the search for extraterrestrial life and the future of the Universe.

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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.

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He chaired the Advisory Committee for the Breakthrough Star shot 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 Scholar GPS. Loeb’s latest TEDtalk was among the top five most popular TED talks in 2024.Click here for Loeb's essays on innovation.