Victoria Meadows

Headshot of Victoria Meadows.

Victoria Meadows

Research areas

Dr. Victoria Meadows is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington and a Senior Research Scientist at the SETI Institute. She leads the massively interdisciplinary NASA Virtual Planetary Laboratory, now based at SETI, which she started in 2001 with the goal of developing a scientific foundation for the search for habitability and life beyond the Solar System. Her research includes studying Venus and exo-Venuses,  the present and past Earth as analogs for exoplanet environments, theoretical modeling of star-planet interactions, and using simulated spectra of exoplanets to understand how to best detect signs of life in a planetary environment. Dr. Meadows has served in roles for numerous NASA missions, including the Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer Space Telescope, and on several concept or proposal development teams. These include 3 Discovery proposals for Venus missions, the the concept development  for the Large UV Optical Infrared Telescope.  She is currently a member of the NASA Habitable Worlds Observatory Community Science and Instrumentation Team. She was also the Chair for the Exoplanets, Astrobiology and the Solar System Science Panel for the National Academy of Sciences Astro2020 Decadal Report, and a member of the NAS Committees on Strategies for both Exoplanets and Astrobiology.  She is a SETI Institute Drake Award Recipient, and a Fellow of both the American Geophysical Union and the American Astronomical Society.