Lisa Kaltenegger is the founding director of the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell University and a pioneer of exoplanet biosignature spectral modeling. Her work spans habitable-zone characterization, terrestrial-atmosphere analogues for exoplanet retrieval, and the design of HWO-class direct-imaging targets.
Selected work covered in this wiki
- 2026 mineral-false-positives study with Mia Belle Parkinson, Edinburgh’s Beth Biller, Grant Lach, and Sean McMahon — finds that sulfide minerals, tectosilicate minerals, and potassium ferrocyanide reproduce the ~700 nm photosynthesis red edge, the canonical surface biopigment biosignature (src-mineral-false-positives-biosignatures-2026-05).