I am a faculty member in the Department of natural Resources at Cornell University.
Most of my work is computer-based, and running the SETI client seemed a natural
choice for me, given that most of my machines are on 24x7.
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.