January 15, 2026, Mountain View, CA – The SETI Institute announced that nominations are now open for the 2026 Tarter Award for Innovation in the Search for Life Beyond Earth. The Tarter Award recognizes individuals whose projects or ideas significantly advance humanity’s search for extraterrestrial life and intelligence.
Named in honor of Dr. Jill Tarter, SETI Institute co-founder and leader in the field of SETI research, the award celebrates contributions across science, technology, education, art, philosophy, law and ethics that support the SETI Institute’s mission to search for life and intelligence beyond Earth. Tarter received the inaugural Tarter Award in 2024.
“The SETI Institute’s Tarter Award recognizes innovators whose creativity produces a concept that helps improve the search for intelligent life beyond Earth, even though its original purpose was something entirely different,” said Tarter. “Although the Keder Welt was invented so long ago that no official inventor has ever been identified, the person who came up with that exceedingly efficient way of attaching fabric sails to a ship’s mast has greatly improved the antennas of the Allen Telescope Array, allowing a radome cover to protect the sensitive electronics at the heart of the signal detection system. We are looking for other creative individuals and their creations that we can use in unexpected ways to do our mission better.”
The Tarter Award is open to any individual or individuals whose innovative work has demonstrably impacted the search for life beyond Earth. For serious consideration, a nominee's contributions should generally have been published, at least in part, in peer-reviewed journals or subjected to an equivalent expert review.
The nomination period opens on January 15, 2026, with a deadline of March 31, 2026. All nominations should be submitted via email to [email protected].
Nomination packets must include:
- A formal letter (maximum two pages) describing the compelling reasons the nominee merits the award
- Two letters of support provided by individuals other than the nominee
- The nominee's full Curriculum Vitae (CV).
The 2026 Tarter Award recipient will be publicly honored at a SETI Institute event and will receive $100,000 in recognition of their achievement.
Members of the Tarter Award selection committee include:
- Jim Bildner, CEO, Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, adjunct lecturer, Harvard Kennedy School
- Andrew Fraknoi– SETI Institute Board Member, former Executive Director, Astronomical Society of the Pacific
- Amaresh Kollipara, Emmy-nominated VR producer, space industry executive, and SETI Institute Board member
- Frank Levinson– General Partner, Small World Group; co-founder of Finisar Corporation
- Sunil Nagaraj, Managing Partner/Founder, Ubiquity Ventures
- Gregory Papadopoulos– Partner, New Enterprise Associates, and former Chair of the SETI Institute Board
"Jill Tarter's career, as significant as it was in developing and broadening the search for possible signals from extraterrestrial intelligence, always included more than just pure research,” said Andrew Fraknoi, SETI Institute Board Member. “She has been a thought leader in considering the consequences of the search — what it will mean for psychology, for philosophy, for education, and for relations among diverse countries on our planet. It thus made a lot of sense to name an award for her that recognizes innovative or interdisciplinary projects in the search for life in the universe."
For more details about the Tarter Award and the nomination process, please click here.
About the SETI Institute
Founded in 1984, the SETI Institute is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary research and education organization whose mission is to lead humanity’s quest to understand the origins and prevalence of life and intelligence in the Universe and to share that knowledge with the world. Our research encompasses the physical and biological sciences and leverages expertise in data analytics, machine learning and advanced signal detection technologies. The SETI Institute is a distinguished research partner for industry, academia and government agencies, including NASA and NSF.
Contact information
Rebecca McDonald
Director of Communications
SETI Institute
[email protected]
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