Sarah Scoles is a science journalist and former associate editor of Astronomy magazine. She is the author of Making Contact: Jill Tarter and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. She is based in Denver.

The Rev. David Wilkinson is a professor of theology and religion at Durham University in Durham, England. He is also an ordained Methodist minister with a doctorate in the study of star formation and the evolution of galaxies. He is the author of Science, Religion and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

Dirk Schulze-Makuch is a professor at the Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Technical University in Berlin and the author or co-author of five books on the possibility of extraterrestrial life, including The Cosmic Zoo: Complex Life on Many Worlds.

John Traphagan is a professor of religious studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he teaches a course on extraterrestrials and previously taught one on the impact the discovery of intelligent alien life might have on religion. He is the author of Extraterrestrial Intelligence and Human Imagination: SETI and the Intersection of Science, Religion, and […]

Clément Vidal describes himself as a “big questions philosopher.” He is a researcher and an assistant professor at the Free University of Brussels in Belgium. Among his areas of study is the potential impact the discovery of intelligent alien life would have on society.

Steven Dick is an astrobiologist and editor of The Impact of Discovering Life Beyond Earth  and Many Worlds: The New Universe, Extraterrestrial Life and Theological Implications. In 2013, he gave a joint lecture on the same subject at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion.

David Weintraub is a professor of astronomy at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., and the author of Religions and Extraterrestrial Life: How Will We Deal With It?.

The Rev. James Kurzynski is a Catholic priest in the Diocese of LaCrosse, Wis., and a hobby astronomer. He writes frequently for the Vatican Observatory blog.

Brother Guy Consolmagno is a Jesuit and director of the the Vatican Observatory, as well as president of its foundation. He is a frequent commentator on religion and science and wrote the pamphlet “Intelligent Life in the Universe: Catholic belief and the search for extraterrestrial life.” The observatory is in Tucson, Ariz.