Conference: The 2025 SETI Symposium

Pennsylvania State University will organize and host the Third Penn State SETI Symposium, from August 18-21, 2025. This international conference will bring together a broad range of expertise to the problem of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), host a gathering of early career SETI researchers, and feature breakout sessions on specialized topics such as SETI post-detection protocols. The symposium will include theory, practice, and social aspects of the field, including radio, laser, exoplanetary, and solar system SETI. The symposium will cater heavily towards junior scientist involvement. The symposium will include contributions from anthropologists, historians, and others outside the physical sciences. SETI is a broad and interdisciplinary endeavor. Thinking about how technological life will be discovered requires consideration of more than just physics or astrophysics. Discovery might be via radio waves, or optical communication, or via atmospheric pollutants of exoplanets, via a probe in the solar system, or from the detection of the waste heat of industry in space around another star. Exploring this requires input from exoplanetary astrophysics, stellar astrophysics, planetary science, radio astronomy, electrical engineering, high energy astrophysics, and more. Technology also implies and underlying social structure, which means we must also consider how alien species might communicate, evolve, spread, and innovate. This breadth and interdisciplinarity cannot be well represented at any typical scientific meeting; it requires a deliberate and holistic approach over multiple days, and participation by some who may not be SETI experts or even astronomers. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.