My Research Philosophy
I am a researcher who specializes in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). SETI is a part of astrobiology, and the search for technosignatures just as important to develop and execute as the search for biosignatures. My personal SETI philosophy is to focus on projects that 1) minimize the importance of the intention to communicate on the part of an ETI 2) minimize the amount of extrapolation required from Earth2020 level technology for the technosignature in question to be detectable and 3) illustrate novel approaches to SETI which have not yet been explored observationally.
I am a member of the Breakthrough Listen Search for Intelligent Life.
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You may have seen my name in…
—Publications—
Sheikh, S.Z. and MacDonald, M.G. (2020, submitted to MNRAS). A Statistical Analysis of the Nulling Pulsar Population.
Sheikh, S. Z., Siemion, A., Enriquez, J. E., Price, D. C., Isaacson, H., Lebofsky, M., & Kalas, P. (2020). The Breakthrough Listen Search for Intelligent Life: A 3.95–8.00 GHz Search for Radio Technosignatures in the Restricted Earth Transit Zone. The Astronomical Journal, 160(1), 29. https://doi.org/ 10.3847/1538-3881/ab9361
Brzycki, Bryan; Siemion, Andrew; Croft, Steve; Czech, Daniel; DeBoer, David; DeMarines, Julia;…Sheikh, S. Z.;… Worden, S. Pete. (2019). Breakthrough Listen Follow-up of the Random Transiter (EPIC 249706694/HD 139139) with the Green Bank Telescope. Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society. 3(10). 147. https://doi.org/10.3847/2515-5172/ab4bd6
Sheikh, S.Z. (2019). Nine axes of merit for technosignature searches. International Journal of Astrobiology, 1-7. doi:10.1017/S1473550419000284
Lebofsky, M., Croft, S., Siemion, A. P. V., Price, D. C., Enriquez, J. E., Isaacson, H., … Sheikh, S.Z., … Zhang, Y. G. (2019). The Breakthrough Listen Search for Intelligent Life: Public Data, Formats, Reduction and Archiving. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 131(1006), 124505.
Sheikh, S. Z., Wright, J. T., Siemion, A. P. & Enriquez, J. E. (2019). Choosing a Maximum Drift Rate in a SETI Search: Astrophysical Considerations. The Astrophysical Journal 884.1. 14.
Wright, J. T., Sheikh, S. Z., Almár, I., Denning, K., Dick, S., & Tarter, J. (2018). Recommendations from the Ad Hoc Committee on SETI Nomenclature. arXiv preprint arXiv:1809.06857.
Isaacson, H., Siemion, A. P., Marcy, G. W., Lebofsky, M., Price, D. C., MacMahon, D., … & Sheikh, S. Z. (2017). The breakthrough listen search for intelligent life: target selection of nearby stars and galaxies. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 129(975), 054501.
You may have met me at…
—Selected Conference Attendances—
AAAS Annual Meeting, February 2019 & 2020
Inclusive Astronomy 2, October 2019
Astrobiology Graduate Conference, July 2019
Astrobiology Science Conference, June 2019
Data-Driven Approaches to the Search for Technosignatures of Advanced Civilizations (Workshop at the Keck Institute for Space Sciences), May 2019
Breakthrough Discuss, April 2018 & 2019
NASA Technosignatures Workshop, September 2018
Making Contact Workshop, May 2018
Decoding Alien Intelligence, March 2018
Queries about possible collaborations or conference/workshop presentations should be directed to szs714@psu.edu.