512-471-1471
anita@astro.as.utexas.edu
Personal web page

Title: Senior Research Scientist

Research Topics: Astronomy, our solar system (particularly comets, asteroids and Kuiper Belt objects); origins of planetary systems; optical spectroscopy; McDonald Observatory

Degree: Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin (1982)

A leading expert on comets, Anita Cochran is the assistant director of McDonald Observatory and a senior research scientist of The University of Texas at Austin. Anita has served as chair of the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society, as a Councilor of the American Astronomical Society, and as a member of the US National Committee of the International Astronomical Union. She has served on numerous committees of the National Research Council including the Committee on Planetary and Lunar Exploration (COMPLEX). Anita was also a member of NASA’s Comet Rendezvous/Asteroid Flyby Imaging Science Team and was a Co-Investigator of the NASA CONTOUR mission. She is currently a member of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory’s Observatory Council.