 | This biographical article is written like a résumé. (April 2024) |
Avi Loeb | |
|---|---|
| אברהם לייב | |
 Loeb in 2023 | |
| Born | Abraham Loeb February 26, 1962 Beit Hanan, Israel |
| Nationality | Israeli American |
| Alma mater | Hebrew University of Jerusalem (BSc, MSc, PhD) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Cosmology, astrophysics |
| Institutions | Institute for Advanced Study Harvard University |
| Doctoral advisor | Shalom Eliezer Lazar Friedland |
| Other academic advisors | John N. Bahcall |
| Doctoral students | Daniel Eisenstein |
Abraham "Avi" Loeb (Hebrew: אברהם (אבי) לייב; born February 26, 1962) is an Israeli-American theoretical physicist who works on astrophysics and cosmology. Loeb is the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University, where since 2007 he has been Director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Center for Astrophysics.[1][2][3][4][5][6] He chaired the Department of Astronomy from 2011 to 2020, and founded the Black Hole Initiative in 2016.
Loeb is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Physical Society, and the International Academy of Astronautics. In 2015, he was appointed as the science theory director for the Breakthrough Initiatives of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation.
Loeb has published popular science books including Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth (2021) and Interstellar: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Our Future in the Stars (2023).
In 2018, he suggested that alien space craft may be in the Solar System, using ʻOumuamua as an example.[7] In 2023, he claimed to have recovered material from an interstellar meteor that could be evidence of an alien starship,[8] which some experts criticized as hasty and sensational,[9][10] and for which other experts found more Earth-related explanations instead, demonstrating that the seismic signal attributed by Loeb to the alleged interstellar space craft was actually caused by ordinary truck traffic.[11]
- ^ "Avi Loeb". Institute for Theory and Computation @ Harvard University. Harvard University.
- ^ "Professor Avi Loeb". Harvard & Smithsonian Center For Astronomy. Harvard University.
- ^ "Abraham (Avi) Loeb". Black Hole Initiative @ Harvard University. Harvard University.
- ^ Loeb, Avi. "Autobiographical sketch" (PDF). Harvard University.
- ^ Loeb, Abraham. "Curriculum Vitae of Abraham Loeb" (PDF). Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
- ^ "Avi Loeb". Department of Astronomy @ Harvard University. Harvard University.
- ^ Groll, Johan (January 7, 2019). "Thinking About Distant Civilizations Isn't Speculative". Der Spiegel. Retrieved January 7, 2019.
- ^ "Why a Harvard professor thinks he may have found fragments of an alien spacecraft". The Independent. July 5, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
NYT-20230724was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Siegel, Ethan. "Watch: Harvard Astronomer Mansplains SETI To The Legend Who Inspired Carl Sagan's Contact". Forbes. Retrieved September 22, 2023.
- ^ Richtel, Matt (March 11, 2024). "Surprise: An 'Extraterrestrial' Gadget Was Something More Familiar - In 2014 a fireball from outer space was posited to be an alien artifact. A recent study suggests otherwise". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 11, 2024. Retrieved March 11, 2024.