Notice: This is an archived and unmaintained page. For current information, please browse astrobiology.nasa.gov.
NAI
Login
NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration

nai
You are here: Home » Directory » Profile

Lisa Kaltenegger
Cornell University

Web Sites

Lisa Kaltenegger home page
Origins of Life Web

Research Interests

Lisa Kaltenegger is a lecturer at Harvard Astrophysics Department and a Research Associate at Harvard. Her work focuses on characterizing extrasolar planets, modeling the atmospheric spectral fingerprints of terrestrial planets and specially indicators for life on them, depending on geological cycles, biological environments and age of evolution. Before accepting the appointment at Harvard, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), and worked at the European Space Agency as part of the design team for the Darwin mission, a satellite that is designed to detect and characterize Earth-like extrasolar planets (similar to NASA’s Terrestrial Planet Finder Mission Concept).

Working with other members of the MIT NAI team, the Kaltenegger group will model the remotely detectable atmospheric fingerprint of extrasolar planets to a) identify spectral features of evolving complex multicellularity as well as b) the envrionments that can facilitate evolving complex multicellularity, setting the MIT NAI team’s work in context with current (JWST, Kepler) as well as planned NASA missions (e.g. TPF, NWO).

Lisa holds a PhD in astrophysics from Karl Franzens University Graz from 2003, a M.Sci in astronomy from 1999 and a M.Eng from University of Technology Graz from 2001, where she specialized in biophysics/biomedicine.

Recent awards include the Tinsley Visiting Scholarship at Univ. Texas Austin 2009, Paul Hertelendy Prize 2007 for outstanding young scientist at the CfA, America’s Young Innovator 2007 (Smithsonian Magazine), Highest academic honors of Austria for academic achievements (awarded personally by the Austrian president, 2005).

Materials

Presentation: “Assembling the puzzle: Reading the spectra of exo-planets & Relevance to NASA” (PDF, 1.4 Mb)

Recent relevant papers:
Detecting of geochemical cycles on exoplanets: Sulfur Cycle (ApJ sub) http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/0906.2193

Characterization of Terrestrial Planets (Astrobiology in press) http://arxiv.org/abs/0906.2263

Earth as a Transiting Planet (ApJ 2009)
http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/0903.3371

Earths Spectral Fingerprint through geol. Evolution (ApJ 2007) http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0609398

Current Projects

NAI Project Collaborators

Publications

  • Alibert, Y., Broeg, C., Benz, W., Wuchterl, G., Grasset, O., Sotin, C., … White, G. J. (2010). Origin and Formation of Planetary Systems. Astrobiology, 10(1), 19–32. doi:10.1089/ast.2009.0372

    See Project

  • Borucki, W. J., Koch, D. G., Batalha, N., Bryson, S. T., Rowe, J., Fressin, F., … Rapin, W. (2012). Kepler-22b: A 2.4 EARTH-RADIUS PLANET IN THE HABITABLE ZONE OF A SUN-LIKE STAR. The Astrophysical Journal, 745(2), 120. doi:10.1088/0004-637x/745/2/120

    See Project See Project

  • Brack, A., Horneck, G., Cockell, C. S., Bérces, A., Belisheva, N. K., Eiroa, C., … White, G. J. (2010). Origin and Evolution of Life on Terrestrial Planets. Astrobiology, 10(1), 69–76. doi:10.1089/ast.2009.0374

    See Project

  • Cockell, C. S., Kaltenegger, L., & Raven, J. A. (2009). Cryptic Photosynthesis—Extrasolar Planetary Oxygen Without a Surface Biological Signature. Astrobiology, 9(7), 623–636. doi:10.1089/ast.2008.0273

    See Project

  • Dvorak, R., Pilat-Lohinger, E., Bois, E., Schwarz, R., Funk, B., Beichman, C., … White, G. J. (2010). Dynamical Habitability of Planetary Systems. Astrobiology, 10(1), 33–43. doi:10.1089/ast.2009.0379

    See Project

  • Fridlund, M., Eiroa, C., Henning, T., Herbst, T., Kaltenegger, L., Léger, A., … White, G. J. (2010). A Roadmap for the Detection and Characterization of Other Earths. Astrobiology, 10(1), 113–119. doi:10.1089/ast.2009.0391

    See Project

  • Fridlund, M., Eiroa, C., Henning, T., Herbst, T., Lammer, H., Léger, A., … Kaltenegger, L. (2010). The Search for Worlds Like Our Own. Astrobiology, 10(1), 5–17. doi:10.1089/ast.2009.0380

    See Project

  • Grenfell, J. L., Rauer, H., Selsis, F., Kaltenegger, L., Beichman, C., Danchi, W., … White, G. J. (2010). Co-Evolution of Atmospheres, Life, and Climate. Astrobiology, 10(1), 77–88. doi:10.1089/ast.2009.0375

    See Project

  • Kaltenegger, L., & Sasselov, D. (2009). DETECTING PLANETARY GEOCHEMICAL CYCLES ON EXOPLANETS: ATMOSPHERIC SIGNATURES AND THE CASE OF SO 2. The Astrophysical Journal, 708(2), 1162–1167. doi:10.1088/0004-637x/708/2/1162

    See Project See Project

  • Kaltenegger, L., & Traub, W. A. (2009). TRANSITS OF EARTH-LIKE PLANETS. The Astrophysical Journal, 698(1), 519–527. doi:10.1088/0004-637x/698/1/519

    See Project

  • Kaltenegger, L., Eiroa, C., & Fridlund, C. V. M. (2009). Target star catalogue for Darwin Nearby Stellar sample for a search for terrestrial planets. Astrophysics and Space Science, 326(2), 233–247. doi:10.1007/s10509-009-0223-3

    See Project

  • Lammer, H., Bredehöft, J. H., Coustenis, A., Khodachenko, M. L., Kaltenegger, L., Grasset, O., … Rauer, H. (2009). What makes a planet habitable?. The Astronomy and Astrophysics Review, 17(2), 181–249. doi:10.1007/s00159-009-0019-z

    See Project See Project

  • Lammer, H., Selsis, F., Chassefière, E., Breuer, D., Grießmeier, J-M., Kulikov, Y. N., … White, G. J. (2010). Geophysical and Atmospheric Evolution of Habitable Planets. Astrobiology, 10(1), 45–68. doi:10.1089/ast.2009.0368

    See Project

  • Schneider, J., Léger, A., Fridlund, M., White, G. J., Eiroa, C., Henning, T., … Tinetti, G. (2010). The Far Future of Exoplanet Direct Characterization. Astrobiology, 10(1), 121–126. doi:10.1089/ast.2009.0371

    See Project
  • Kaltenegger, L.  (2010).  Characterizing Habitable Exo-Moons.  ApJL, 711: L1-L6. See Project
  • Segura, A. & Kaltenegger, L.  (2010).  Search for Habitable Planets.  In: Navarro-González, V.A.B.a.R. (Eds.).  Astrobiology: Emergence, Search and Detection of Life.  merican Scientific Publishers. See Project
  • View all 16 publications

Past NAI Teams