Trained as a quantum mechanic, Dr. Gerry Harp was deeply interested in possibilities for using the multiple telescopes of the Allen Telescope Array to generate steerable "beams" on the sky - beams that could be far smaller than any single antenna could produce. Such beams don't emit anything, but work in reverse by capturing only energy that comes from the sky in a certain direction. Gerry joined the SETI Institute in 2000, practically at the telescope's inception and uses the telescope for SETI research.
Gerry's SETI research often focuses on using the array properties of the telescope to speed up SETI by searching large areas of the sky all at one time (imaging SETI). Gerry is also interested in extending the ways we analyze telescope data to search for signals that can contain large amounts of complex information (e.g. spread spectrum signals). Put simply, because of the long times (years) between when they send the signal and when it arrives, the aliens will help us out with some kind of error correction scheme or another. All such schemes introduce redundancy, and by designing algorithms to sense redundancy we can discover complex ET signals without knowing their content.
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