Dr Brian Lacki

Breakthrough Listen Senior Research Associate

 Brian Lacki joined the team in 2017. He received his Ph.D. in Astronomy from Ohio State University for research into cosmic rays in star-forming galaxies. This galaxy-oriented work continued as a Jansky Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies. Brian researches theoretical aspects of SETI at Breakthrough Listen. He has written papers about new classes of technosignatures, including specular glints from Solar System artifacts, spectral signatures of partial cloaking of stellar populations by Dyson spheres, and X-ray lensing events; led the compilation of the Breakthrough Listen Exotica Catalog, intended to contain “one of everything” in the known cosmos; and considers philosophical questions relevant to SETI like anthropic self-selection effects. He is working on a series of papers for deriving constraints on galactic-level populations of ETIs, considering the problems of confusion and the collective emission of broadcasts, and is developing plans to observe Exotica objects.