This program is sponsored by the Covley Foundation based in Los Angeles, California.

The Covley Foundation is dedicated to advancing science for the benefit of humanity.

I'm Alan Olva, and this is Clear In Vivid, conversations about connecting and communicating.

There are so many stars out there and so many planets.

A bigger number than most of us can conceive.

Right now we're just hoping to find a sign of life.

We won't know if that sign is from a little green humanoid or if it's just from simple,

single-celled bacteria.

There's really no reason not to believe that's possible somewhere.

But we're just hoping it's true somewhere close enough to us.

That's someday in the future, generations in the future.

We can somehow make contact.

That's astronomers Sarah Seeger.

She's devoted her career to searching for life on planets beyond the solar system, using

a method she pioneered as a graduate student.

She's written a book about it called The Smallest Lights in the Universe.

But as you'll hear from our conversation, her book is about much more.

It's an unusually frank account of pursuing a high-stakes career at a major university,

while coping with a devastating personal loss and emerging triumphant.

This is great to be talking with you because you've had such a distinguished career even

though you're young, including the MacArthur Grants, so I'm talking to an official genius,

which is very nice.

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