Dimitar Sasselov is the Phillips Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University. He explores stars and planets, and how life emerged on Earth, by specializing in the modes of interaction between light and matter, and the uses of remote sensing. Sasselov and his group do research in experimental photochemistry (in the wet lab), astrophysical observations (as co-investigator in the NASA Kepler & TESS missions), and theory. Sasselov is the founding director of the Harvard Origins of Life Initiative, a cross-disciplinary institute that joins biologists, chemists, and astronomers in searching for the starting points of life on Earth (and possibly elsewhere)