Smallest Lights in the Universe (Seager) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—July 21, 1971
• Where—Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• Education—B.S., University of Toronto; Ph.D., Harvard University
• Awards—Sackler International Prize in Physics
• Currently—lives in Concord, Massachusetts, USA


Sara Seager is an astrophysicist and a professor of physics and planetary science at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She currently chairs NASA's Probe Study Team for the Starshade project.

Seager's research is focused on exoplanets and the search for the first Earth-like twin, and she has introduced many new ideas to the field of exoplanet characterization, including work that led to the first detection of an exoplanet atmosphere.

Seager won the prestigious Sackler International Prize in Physics, as well as a MacArthur fellowship, and she was named by Time as "one of the twenty-five most influential people in space."

In 2011 Seager's husband Mike was diagnosed with colon cancer and died not long after, which is the subject of her 2020 memoir, The Smallest Lights in the Sky. She lives with her sons in Concord, Massachusetts. (Adapted from the publisher.)