Barbara Cohen (scientist)

For the author of children's literature, see Barbara Cohen.
Barbara Cohen
Cohen at Marshall Space Flight Center in 2010
Alma materState University of New York
University of Arizona
Scientific career
InstitutionsGoddard Space Flight Center

Marshall Space Flight Center
University of New Mexico
University of Hawaii

University of Tennessee

Barbara Cohen is a planetary scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The asteroid 6816 Barbcohen is named after her.

Education

Cohen is from upstate New York.[1] She earned a bachelor's degree in geology from State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1993.[1] She joined Phi Beta Kappa during her studies.[1] She moved to the University of Arizona for her doctoral studies, where she received a University of Arizona Graduate College Fellowship and NASA Graduate Student Research Program Fellowship, and graduated in 2000.[2] Here Cohen looked to understand impact rates on the moon using microbeam analysis and Argon–argon dating of lunar meteorites. She identified that clastic rock in lunar meteorites are different from samples from Apollo, and have ages consistent with Late Heavy Bombardment.[2][3][4] While at the University of Arizona, she also led a study into various physical properties of chili.[5]

Career

Cohen joined the University of Tennessee as a postdoctoral researcher, where she worked on analysis of lunar samples such as Dhofar 025 and Dhofar 026[6] with Larry Taylor.[7] She moved to the University of Hawaii, where she worked with Klaus Keil on geochronology of Luna 20 samples.[2] In 2003 she joined the University of New Mexico as an assistant professor.[1][8]

In 2007 Cohen joined Marshall Space Flight Center to support the planning for human exploration of the Moon for the Lunar Precursor Robotic Program.[2][9] She led the MSFC planetary science team[10] and was the lead US project scientist for the International Lunar Network, a proposed mission to understand the Moon's composition.[11] She is the Principal Investigator of the Marshall Space Flight Center (now Mid-Atlantic) Noble Gas Research Laboratory (MNGRL), using noble-gas isotopes to understand the temperature-time histories of rocks and meteorites.[12][13] The MNGRL lab is being used to analyze Apollo samples that have been opened for the first time in 50 years.[14][15] Conscious that the MNGRL was so large, she developed a rover-sized Potassium-argon laser experiment (KArLE).[16][17]

Cohen is the principal investigator for the Lunar Flashlight mission, a CubeSat mission aboard the first flight of the Space Launch System that will search for water ice on the Moon.[18][19][20][21] She is the principal investigator for PITMS,[22] a mass spectrometer manifested on the first Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) mission,[23] and a co-Investigator on Heimdall and SAMPLR, instruments that will fly on a subsequent CLPS mission.[24]

Cohen was Associate Principal Investigator of the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, where she was identifying the nature and origins of Martian impact material.[25] She is a member of the science team for the Curiosity rover and is a Returned Sample Scientist for the Perseverance rover mission.

She has volunteered for several missions to search for Antarctic meteorites (ANSMET).[26] Cohen contributed to "The Scientific Context for Exploration of the Moon", a 2008 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report.[27] In 2010 Cohen featured in the Faces of Marshall campaign.[28] She was part of a group who created the 2013 Planetary Science Decadal Survey, which provided a roadmap for planetary science missions and priorities.[29] In 2016 she took part in a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" (AMA).[30] In 2017 Cohen joined Goddard Space Flight Center.[1]

Cohen is a member of the American Geophysical Union and has been part of several committees.[31] She is a member of The Planetary Society.[32] Cohen won the 2018 Angioletta Coradini Mid-Career Award from NASA's Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI).[33] She is a 2018 Fellow of the Meteoritical Society.[34]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e "Bio - Barbara A Cohen". science.gsfc.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2018-04-10.
  2. ^ a b c d "Barbara Cohen, PhD". Marshall Space Flight Centre. Retrieved 2018-04-10.
  3. ^ Crockett, Christopher (16 July 2019). "How the moon landings changed our view of the solar system". Knowable Magazine. doi:10.1146/knowable-071519-1. S2CID 199099236. Retrieved 11 August 2022.
  4. ^ Bottke, William F.; Norman, Marc D. (30 August 2017). "The Late Heavy Bombardment". Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences. 45 (1): 619–647. Bibcode:2017AREPS..45..619B. doi:10.1146/annurev-earth-063016-020131. ISSN 0084-6597. Retrieved 11 August 2022.
  5. ^ Barbara Cohen; Jennifer Grier. "Special Session: Physical Properties of Chili". The Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. Retrieved 2018-04-12.
  6. ^ Grossman, Jeffrey N. (2000). "Meteoritical Bulletin: Entry for Dhofar 025". Meteoritics and Planetary Science Supplement. 35. Bibcode:2000M&PSA..35..199G. Retrieved 2018-04-10.
  7. ^ "Recent Postdoctoral Research Associates". taylor.utk.edu. Retrieved 2018-04-10.
  8. ^ COHEN, Barbara Anne; SWINDLE, Timothy D.; KRING, David A. (2005-05-01). "Geochemistry and40Ar-39Ar geochronology of impact-melt clasts in feldspathic lunar meteorites: Implications for lunar bombardment history". Meteoritics & Planetary Science. 40 (5): 755–777. Bibcode:2005M&PS...40..755C. doi:10.1111/j.1945-5100.2005.tb00978.x. ISSN 1945-5100. S2CID 55635606.
  9. ^ Shelby G. Spires (2010-01-01). "Marshall Space Flight Center competes for NASA moon sample mission". AL.com. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  10. ^ "Introducing Barbara Cohen". astrotweeps. 2015-04-05. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  11. ^ Cohen, Barbara a; Server, Nasa Technical Reports (2013-06-27). The Lunar Quest Program and the International Lunar Network. BiblioGov. ISBN 9781289080426.
  12. ^ "The MNGRL laboratory". Marshall Space Flight Center. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  13. ^ Cohen, Barbara (2016-03-21). "The MSFC Noble Gas Research Laboratory (MNGRL): A NASA Investigator Facility". Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (1903): 2760. Bibcode:2016LPI....47.2760C. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  14. ^ December 2019, Samantha Mathewson 24 (24 December 2019). "NASA Will Give Scientists a Lump of Moon Dirt to Unwrap Soon. They're Thrilled". Space.com. Retrieved 2020-06-26.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  15. ^ Kaplan, Sarah (12 May 2019). "Apollo rocks showed how the moon was made, and now they're about to solve more mysteries". Washington Post. Retrieved 2020-06-26.
  16. ^ Kat Gardner-Vandy (2012-03-15). "Dr. Barbara Cohen: a renaissance woman who contributes broadly". Women in Planetary Science: Female Scientists on Careers, Research, Space Science, and Work/Life Balance. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  17. ^ Witze, Alexandra (2018-03-06). "US scientists plot return to the Moon's surface". Nature. 555 (7695): 149–150. Bibcode:2018Natur.555..149W. doi:10.1038/d41586-018-02697-5. PMID 29517036. S2CID 3760336.
  18. ^ "Lick that!". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 2020-06-26.
  19. ^ Bridget Morawski (2014-10-28). "NASA Hopes to Test Mining Moon Water for Future Manned Missions". NOVA Next. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  20. ^ NASA's Lunar Flashlight, TMRO, 2016-08-28, archived from the original on 2018-06-15, retrieved 2018-04-11
  21. ^ "Itty-Bitty Satellites Take On Big-Time Science Missions". NPR.org. Retrieved 2020-06-26.
  22. ^ "OU research has been selected to support NASA's return to the Moon". Research at The Open University. 2019-07-15. Retrieved 2020-06-26.
  23. ^ Warner, Cheryl (2020-01-22). "First Commercial Moon Delivery Assignments to Advance Artemis". NASA. Retrieved 2020-06-26.
  24. ^ Potter, Sean (2020-04-08). "NASA Awards Contract to Deliver Science, Tech to Moon". NASA. Retrieved 2020-06-26.
  25. ^ "Mars Exploration Rover Mission: Spotlight". mars.nasa.gov. 2005-10-19. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  26. ^ Bill Steigerwald (April 5, 2018). "NASA scientist collects bits of the solar system from an Antarctic glacier". Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  27. ^ Space Studies Board (3 August 2007). The Scientific Context for the Exploration of the Moon (Report). National Academies Press. ISBN 978-0-309-10919-2. Archived from the original on 2018-04-12. Retrieved 2018-04-11 – via nationalacademies.org.
  28. ^ Administrator, NASA Content (2016-07-07). "Barbara Cohen: Planetary Scientist". NASA. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  29. ^ "Planetary Science Decadal Survey". sites.nationalacademies.org. Archived from the original on 2012-02-02.
  30. ^ "Interview with Dr. Barbara Cohen, the Science Lead for the NASA's Lunar Flashlight mission. [15:16] • r/space". reddit. 28 August 2016. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  31. ^ "Barbara A. Cohen - Leadership". Leadership. Archived from the original on 2015-07-06. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  32. ^ "Barbara Cohen". planetary.org. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  33. ^ "Angioletta Coradini Award". sservi.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2018-05-13.
  34. ^ "Fellows | Meteoritical Society". meteoritical.org. Retrieved 2020-06-26.