Arrival

Please join the Penn State Eberly College of Science and Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the State Theatre at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, November 4, for a free screening of the 2016 film Arrival—starring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, and Forest Whitaker—as part of the college’s Science Matters Spotlight Sessions and Friedman Lectures in Astronomy and Astrophysics.

The film, adapted from the award-winning sci-fi novella The Story of your Life and which received eight Oscar nominations, explores the challenges of interspecies communication and alien cognition that might follow from first contact with alien species.

Immediately following the film, the Penn State Extraterrestrial Intelligence (PSETI) Center will sponsor a Q&A session featuring the following expert panelists:

• Sheri Wells-Jensen, professor of linguistics at Bowling Green University. Wells-Jensen served as the 2023 NASA/Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology, Exploration, and Scientific Innovation. She specializes in disability in outer space, and as a board member of METI International is an expert in the linguistics of first contact.
• Science journalist Nadia Drake. Drake was a longtime contributor to National Geographic, holds a doctorate in genetics and developmental biology, and is the daughter of SETI pioneer Frank Drake.
• Jason Wright, director of the PSETI Center and winner of the SETI Institute’s 2019 Drake Award for his work on exoplanets and SETI.

This panel will be moderated by Jennifer Macalady, director of Penn State’s Astrobiology Research Center and the Penn State Ecology Institute. The discussion will focus on the scientific accuracy of the film, the challenges of planning for first contact, and the role of the PSETI Center in the search for intelligent life in the cosmos.