Jill Cornell Tarter (born 1944), US astronomer. Tarter is director of the Center for SETI Research (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence). She began working on the search for extra-terrestrial life as a graduate student, working on the SERENDIP project (later named the Search for Extraterrestrial Radio Emissions from Nearby Developed Intelligent Populations). In the early 1990s she worked on NASA's High Resolution Microwave Survey (HRMS), and became its director when it was renamed Project Phoenix. She was made a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2002. Photographed in 2010.