Garance Dominé

Early Life and Formation

Garance Dominé is a French scientist who represents a new generation bridging rigorous physics with UAP investigation. Trained at France's most prestigious institution, École Polytechnique, she subsequently studied neutrinos at Stanford University—among the most elusive particles in physics, capable of passing through the entire Earth essentially undisturbed. Her intellectual trajectory reveals formative influences that would later shape her unconventional career path: childhood fascination with languages and computer programming, combined with intellectual admiration for Albert Einstein and Jacques Vallée, the French astrophysicist and ufologist whose work on UAP classification inspired the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Transition to UAP Research

Rather than pursue a conventional tenure-track academic position, Dominé made a deliberate choice to join the Galileo Project at Harvard in 2025, leaving the established pathway of particle physics to help build what she describes as "a new science of the unexplained." This career pivot reflects broader shifts in how credentialed scientists approach UAP research: the field has moved from fringe speculation to institutional legitimacy, with Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics lending its authority to systematic, instrument-based investigation.

The Galileo Project, founded in 2021 by theoretical physicist Avi Loeb, represents a distinctly scientific alternative to government disclosure frameworks. Where official channels remain bureaucratic and compartmentalized, the Galileo Project operates under the dual mandate of detecting technosignatures of extraterrestrial origin and identifying the nature of anomalous aerial phenomena through continuous sky surveys. Dominé's role positions her at the intersection of two critical disciplines: detector physics (informed by her neutrino research) and computational analysis (leveraging her programming background).

Current Work on UAP Detection

In 2025, Dominé contributed to the Galileo Project's most ambitious initiative: designing and deploying an all-sky infrared camera array system, colloquially named "Dalek," to scan Earth's skies for potential signatures of anomalous craft or non-human technology. The system represents a departure from ad-hoc eyewitness reports and fragmentary radar data; instead, it employs continuous, systematic surveillance using multi-spectral infrared sensors and machine learning algorithms to distinguish genuine anomalies from conventional aircraft, weather phenomena, and instrumental artifacts.

This technical work addresses a fundamental epistemological problem in UAP studies: without standardized detection methods and transparent data collection, UAP reports remain anecdotal and difficult to verify. By applying engineering rigor from particle physics—where detecting rare, subtle events is routine—the Galileo Project brings quantitative accountability to a field historically dominated by subjective witness testimony.

Significance and Outlook

Dominé exemplifies how the professionalization and institutionalization of UAP research is attracting scientists trained in exacting fields like neutrino physics. Her presence at Harvard signals that investigating anomalous phenomena is no longer professionally disqualifying; it can coexist with rigorous scientific method. Her particular path—from studying some of the universe's most invisible particles to searching for perhaps the most publicly visible yet scientifically elusive aerial phenomena—suggests a thematic continuity: both domains involve detecting the subtle, the rare, and the difficult to measure.

As of early 2026, the Galileo Project had deployed observatories in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and atop the Sphere entertainment venue in Las Vegas, with Dominé contributing to instrumental commissioning and data analysis. No definitive UAP has yet survived rigorous conventional explanation through these systems, but the project continues to expand its sensor suite and analytical capabilities. Her work remains emblematic of a growing conviction among younger scientists that UAP investigation deserves the same methodological seriousness as any other frontier in physics.