Lisa Kaltenegger (born 4 March 1977 in Kuchl nearby Salzburg) is an Austrian astronomer specialising in the modeling and characterization of exoplanets and the search for life.

[1][2] Previously, she held a joint position at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg where she was the Emmy Noether Research Group Leader for the "Super-Earths and Life" group, and at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian in Cambridge, MA.

In 2011, she led a team to model the spectral fingerprint of Gliese 581 d, one of the first small Radial Velocity planets to be discovered in the habitable zone of its star.

[18] In 2021, Kaltenegger and J. K. Faherty identified 1,715 stars (with likely related exoplanetary systems) within 326 light-years (100 parsecs) that have a favorable positional vantage point—in relation to the Earth Transit Zone (ETZ)—of detecting Earth as an exoplanet transiting the Sun since the beginnings of human civilization (about 5,000 years ago); an additional 319 stars are expected to arrive at this special vantage point in the next 5,000 years.

Kaltenegger is the founder[citation needed] and current director[23] of the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell University.