Sara Seager, PhD, is an astronomer and planetary scientist. Seager holds the Class of 1941 Professorship in Planetary Science at MIT and also teaches in Physics and Aeronautics & Astronautics. Her research is focused on the discovery and analysis of exoplanets, leading NASA to dub her “an astronomical Indiana Jones.” She predicted that sodium should be able to be detected in an exoplanet atmosphere, which was confirmed in 2001, transforming the theoretical study of exoplanet atmospheres into a mature observational science. Seager became a MacArthur Fellow in 2013 and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2015. Her other awards include being appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2020, and the Kavli Prize in 2024, which honors scientists for breakthroughs in astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience.
