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 in 1946) is an American astronomer. She is a special professor of Astronomy at the California Institute of Technology, often called Caltech. Dr. Cohen is known for her deep knowledge of the Milky Way Galaxy. She especially studies its outer halo, which is the farthest part of our galaxy. She also helped a lot in planning and building the famous Keck Telescope.
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 run by the Workmen's Circle in Brooklyn.
She won a National Merit Scholarship. This helped her go to Radcliffe College. In 1967, she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in astronomy. Later, in 1971, she got her PhD in astronomy. This was from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Her main research for her PhD was about how much lithium is in certain stars. Her professor, Guido Münch, guided her work.
Career and Discoveries
From 1971 to 1974, Dr. Cohen worked at the University of California, Berkeley. She was a Miller Postdoctoral Fellow there. After that, she became an assistant astronomer. This was at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona.
In 1979, Dr. Cohen started teaching at Caltech. In 2005, she became the Kate Van Nuys Page Professor of Astronomy. She also helps lead the Keck Science Steering Committee at Caltech. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. This is a very important group of scientists. She has given many special talks about astronomy.
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.
Her work has also been shared in popular news. For example, she used special laser tools at the Keck observatory. She found that some groups of stars orbiting the Andromeda Galaxy were not real clusters. With another scientist, Evan Kirby, she studied a small galaxy called Triangulum II. They found it has a lot more mass than its visible stars suggest. This makes it a possible dark matter galaxy.
See also
- List of women in leadership positions on astronomical instrumentation projects
