My name is Eric Chiapponne. I am 19 years old and have been part of Seti@home for about three years. I'm still a student and don't work unless I really have to.
Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home
I think that it is pretty likely that there is life somewhere in the universe, because otherwise, as they said on Contact, it would be a pretty big waste of space. I don't really believe that most of the "sightings" are not genuine. I do think that it would be a good idea to transmit some sort of welcoming signal. There might be other civilizations that are doing the exact same thing as we are.
SETI@home and Astropulse are funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and donations from SETI@home volunteers. AstroPulse is funded in part by the NSF through grant AST-0307956.