Dr. Sara Seager is an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at MIT who has led groundbreaking research on exoplanet atmospheres including science-based missions for NASA. She is currently working on finding a true Earth twin and the signs of life by researching atmospheric biosignature gases. Dr. Seager is involved with a number of space-based exoplanet investigations as the Deputy Science Director for the MIT-led NASA mission TESS, as the principal investigator for the on-orbit JPL/MIT CubeSat ASTERIA, and as a lead for the Starshade Rendezvous Mission (a space-based mission concept under technology development for direct imaging discovery and characterization of Earth analogs). A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Seager earned her doctorate from Harvard University, was one of Time magazine’s 2012 “25 Most Influential in Space,” and was a 2013 MacArthur Fellow.