Spring Hill College, University of Bonn
Member of the SETI Institute Science Advisory Board
Dr. Chelsea Haramia is a philosophy professor whose research takes root at the intersection of science, technology, values, and the environment. She holds a position as associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at Spring Hill College in the United States, as well as a senior research fellowship at the Center for Science and Thought at the University of Bonn in Germany, where she is working on a project titled Desirable Digitalization: Rethinking AI for Just and Sustainable Futures. She is also enjoying a short fellowship with the Academy of International Affairs NRW, where she is working on an individual project titled Global Planning for Post-Detection. She is co-editor of the open-access journal 1000-Word Philosophy, and she is an international affiliate of the UK SETI Research Network's Post-Detection Hub. She earned a BA in philosophy from the University of Illinois, Chicago, as well as a Ph.D. in philosophy and a graduate certificate in women and gender studies from the University of Colorado, Boulder.
She is a trained ethicist and author of several articles and book chapters on the ethics of space exploration and astrobiology ethics, with singular contributions to debates in the ethics of SETI and METI in particular. She currently has a book under contract evaluating the moral responsibilities of cosmic messengers and a collaborative work in-progress on astrobioethics for a new era of planetary exploration. She is especially interested in the ethical implications of projects that aim to represent or speak on behalf of humanity and planet Earth itself. She is also presently serving on the management committee for a successful grant project focused on futures-oriented governance of outer space. Additionally, her work and network allows various opportunities to think and write about the social and environmental sustainability of technology and AI systems, including how they relate to SETI searches and issues of pre-and-post-detection of extraterrestrial life or extraterrestrial technology.