The 2018 Drake Award: Honoring Victoria S. Meadows

The SETI Institute’s Drake Award celebrates exemplary contributions to astrobiology through scientific research and space exploration. The award is named for Frank Drake, whose Drake Equation first identified the specific factors necessary for the emergence of life in the Universe and the evolution of technological civilizations. This honor is given at the discretion of the Board of Trustees of the SETI Institute, based on nominations from its Science Advisory Board. The honoree is presented a cash award and trophy and is invited to describe their research at a public ceremony.

This year's event will honor Dr. Victoria S. Meadows, a leader in the scientific analysis of environments on extrasolar planets, and in the search for signs of habitability and life.

General Admission Tickets $35 each or 2 for $60
VIP Tickets $70 each or 2 for $120
Sponsorship opportunities also available.
Proceeds benefit the SETI Institute, a nonprofit organization.

VICTORIA S. MEADOWS is a Professor of Astronomy and the Director of the Astrobiology Graduate Program at the University of Washington. She also leads the NASA Astrobiology Institute Virtual Planetary Laboratory. Her research interests include theoretical modeling of terrestrial planetary environments to understand their habitability; the generation and detectability of planetary biosignatures and their false positives; and solar system planetary observations.

Dr. Meadows has served on research and mission teams at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, the NASA EPOXI mission, and the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field and Planetary Camera-2, among others. She is currently a member of the Science and Technology Definition Team for the Large UV Optical Infrared
Survey Telescope concept and serves on the National Academy of Sciences Committees for Astrobiology and Exoplanets. She earned her Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Sydney.