Financial and leadership support over the life of the SETI Institute has included Carl Sagan, Bernard Oliver, David Packard, William Hewlett, Gordon Moore, Paul Allen, Nathan Myhrvold, Lewis Platt, and Greg Papadopoulos.

Two Nobel laureates have been associated with the SETI Institute: Charles Townes, key inventor of the laser, and the late Baruch Blumberg, who developed the Hepatitis B vaccine.

[3][4] That same week, a statement was released, signed by many in the SETI community, that a "worldwide scientific, political and humanitarian discussion must occur before any message is sent".

The institute's SETI researchers use both radio and optical telescope systems to search for deliberate signals from technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilizations.

They include Laurance Doyle, Peter Jenniskens, Pascal Lee, Mark R. Showalter, Franck Marchis, and Janice Bishop.

Big Picture Science is hosted by the institute's Senior Astronomer, Seth Shostak and co-hosted by Executive Producer Molly Bentley.

The institute's weekly colloquium series – SETI Talks, is an in-depth one-hour lecture featuring leading researchers from around the world in astronomy, astrophysics, aerospace technology, astrobiology, machine learning and more.

Lectures are free of charge, open to the public and presented at Microsoft's Silicon Valley Campus in Mountain View, California.

Contrary to popular belief, and their Form 990, no government funds are allocated for its SETI searches[citation needed] – these are financed entirely by private contributions.