Judith Gamora Cohen facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Judith Gamora Cohen
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|---|---|
| Born | 1946 |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Radcliffe College, California Institute of Technology |
| Known for | Being one of the designers of the Keck observatory |
| Awards | Ernest F. Fullam Award of the Dudley Observatory |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Astronomy |
| Institutions | University of California Berkeley, Kitt Peak National Observatory, California Institute of Technology |
| Doctoral advisor | Guido Münch |
Judith Gamora Cohen (born 1946) is an American astronomer. She is a special professor of Astronomy at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Dr. Cohen is a top expert on our home galaxy, the Milky Way Galaxy, especially its outer parts. She also helped design and build the amazing Keck Telescope.
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Early Life and School
Judith Cohen was born in 1946 in New York City, New York. She grew up in Brooklyn. She went to public schools in the city. She also attended special schools called Workmen's Circle schools.
She earned a special scholarship called a National Merit Scholarship. This helped her go to Radcliffe College. She graduated in 1967 with a degree in astronomy. In 1971, she earned her PhD in astronomy from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Her main project was about a chemical element called lithium in stars.
Career and Discoveries
After college, Dr. Cohen worked at the University of California, Berkeley from 1971 to 1974. Then, she became an astronomer at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona.
In 1979, Dr. Cohen joined the teaching staff at Caltech. In 2005, she became a special professor of astronomy there. She also helps lead the Keck Science Steering Committee at Caltech. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, which is a group of top scientists.
Studying Stars and Galaxies
Dr. Cohen's research focuses on how stars and galaxies are made and how they change over time. She helped create tools for the Keck observatory. She also led a big project called the Caltech Faint Galaxy Redshift Survey. She has written more than 200 science papers about her discoveries.
Her work has even been featured in popular news. Using special tools at the Keck observatory, she studied groups of stars around the Andromeda Galaxy. She found that some groups that looked like tight clusters were not actually clusters at all.
Dark Matter Research
Dr. Cohen also worked with another scientist, Evan Kirby. They studied a small galaxy called Triangulum II. They found that this galaxy has a surprisingly large amount of mass for how few stars it has. This makes Triangulum II a possible "dark matter galaxy." Dark matter is a mysterious substance that scientists believe makes up a big part of the universe, but we can't see it directly.
See also
In Spanish: Judith Gamora Cohen para niños
- List of women in leadership positions on astronomical instrumentation projects
