Kent Cullers

Who is Kent Cullers?

Kent Cullers is an American astronomer, who was a manager of SETI's Project Phoenix. In 2005, he retired from the SETI Institute.

Cullers was born 1949 in El Reno, Oklahoma, the son of an oil field engineer. His birth was premature and to save his life he was placed in an incubator filled with pure oxygen. The excess oxygen damaged his retinas, leaving him totally blind. His father, a physicist, read astronomy books to Cullers as a child, influencing the boy's later aspirations. He grew up in Temple City, California, where he was a highly ranked student. He first studied psychology at nearby Pomona College, but against great resistance changed his major to physics midway through college. He received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1980. He is the first totally blind physicist in the United States, and is believed to be the first astronomer who was blind from birth.

Kent Cullers worked for NASA's Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence program upon graduating from Berkeley. From 1985 to 1990 he was the Targeted Search Signal Detection Team Leader with the SETI Institute.