Dimitar Sasselov

Astronomer; Director, Harvard Origins of Life Initiative

Dimitar Sasselov is a Bulgarian astronomer, currently based at Harvard, where he is Professor of Astronomy and Director of the Harvard Origins of Life Initiative. He was born in Sofia, where he studied and gained a doctorate in Physics, before moving to Toronto for postgraduate research, where he acquired his doctorate in astronomy. He works with NASA’s Kepler Mission, which searches for planets that may be Earth-like, using stars as evidence for their presence. He was part of the team that, in 2002, discovered the most distant planet known at the time, which was named OGLE-TR-56b, and is located in the constellation Sagittarius.