Rosemary Theresa Coogan (born 1991) is an astrophysicist and UK astronaut from

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

. Her research considers galaxy evolution and space-based telescopes. She is part of

ESA The European Space Agency (ESA) is a 23-member international organization devoted to space exploration. With its headquarters in Paris and a staff of around 2,547 people globally as of 2023, ESA was founded in 1975 in the context of European ...

European Astronaut Corps The European Astronaut Corps is a unit of the European Space Agency (ESA) that selects, trains, and provides astronauts as crew members on U.S. and Russian space missions. The corps has 13 active members, able to serve on the International Space St ...

Early life and education

Coogan was privately educated at Brighton & Hove High School, now Brighton Girls. She was involved with military training from a young age. She was trained as a

petty officer A petty officer (PO) is a non-commissioned officer in many navies. Often they may be superior to a seaman, and subordinate to more senior non-commissioned officers, such as chief petty officers. Petty officers are usually sailors that have ...

with the

Sea Cadets Sea cadets are members of a cadets youth program sponsored by a national naval service, aimed for young people with an interest in waterborne activities and or the national navy. The organisation may be sponsored in whole or in part by the navy or ...

. In 2009 she joined HMS ''Calliope'' and HMS ''Example'', where she was made an

Officer cadet Officer cadet is a rank held by military personnel during their training to become commissioned officers. In the United Kingdom, the rank is also used by personnel of University Service Units such as the University Officers' Training Corps. Th ...

. She was later promoted to

Midshipman A midshipman is an officer of the lowest Military rank#Subordinate/student officer, rank in the Royal Navy, United States Navy, and many Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth navies. Commonwealth countries which use the rank include Royal Cana ...

of the

Royal Naval Reserve The Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) is one of the two volunteer reserve forces of the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. Together with the Royal Marines Reserve, they form the Maritime Reserve. The present RNR was formed by merging the original ...

. Coogan studied for her undergraduate degree in Physics at

Durham University Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university in Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament (UK), Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by r ...

(

University College In a number of countries, a university college is a college institution that provides tertiary education but does not have full or independent university status. A university college is often part of a larger university. The precise usage varies f ...

), graduating in 2013. She remained in Durham for her master's research, where she studied

gamma-ray astronomy Gamma-ray astronomy is a subfield of astronomy where scientists observe and study celestial objects and phenomena in outer space which emit cosmic electromagnetic radiation in the form of gamma rays,Astronomical literature generally hyphena ...

with

Paula Chadwick Mary Paula Chadwick is a British physicist who is professor and head of the Department of Physics at Durham University. Her research investigates gamma-ray astronomy and astroparticle physics. She is involved with the Cherenkov Telescope Array. ...

. Her research involved observations using the

Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (FGST, also FGRST), formerly called the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), is a space observatory being used to perform gamma-ray astronomy observations from low Earth orbit. Its main instrument is ...

to study the 0.1 < E_γ < 300 GeV gamma-ray emission of radio

quasar A quasar ( ) is an extremely Luminosity, luminous active galactic nucleus (AGN). It is sometimes known as a quasi-stellar object, abbreviated QSO. The emission from an AGN is powered by accretion onto a supermassive black hole with a mass rangi ...

s. Coogan also worked on

data science Data science is an interdisciplinary academic field that uses statistics, scientific computing, scientific methods, processing, scientific visualization, algorithms and systems to extract or extrapolate knowledge from potentially noisy, stru ...

during a work placement at Senseye. She worked as a simulation support engineer to develop machine learning models to detect anomalies from robotic sensors. Coogan moved to the

University of Sussex The University of Sussex is a public university, public research university, research university located in Falmer, East Sussex, England. It lies mostly within the city boundaries of Brighton and Hove. Its large campus site is surrounded by the ...

as a doctoral researcher, studying galaxy evolution and the activity of

active galactic nuclei An active galactic nucleus (AGN) is a compact region at the center of a galaxy that emits a significant amount of energy across the electromagnetic spectrum, with characteristics indicating that this luminosity is not produced by the stars. Such e ...

. She found that dense cluster environment increases the star formation efficiency, which she attributed to the high number of mergers, interactions and the active galactic nuclei. Toward the end of her doctorate, she attempted to inform future observations by constructing mock images of survey fields for the

Square Kilometre Array The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is an intergovernmental organisation, intergovernmental international radio telescope project being built in Australia (low-frequency) and South Africa (mid-frequency). The combining infrastructure, the Square ...

Career

Coogan moved to the

Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics The Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics is part of the Max Planck Society, located in Garching, near Munich, Germany. In 1991 the Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics split up into the Max Planck Institute for Extraterr ...

. In Germany, Coogan studied galaxy evolution with space-based telescopes. In 2022, Coogan was appointed to the

CNES CNES () is the French national space agency. Headquartered in central Paris, the agency is overseen by the ministries of the Armed Forces, Economy and Finance and Higher Education, Research and Innovation. It operates from the Toulouse Spac ...

, where she works on

Euclid Euclid (; ; BC) was an ancient Greek mathematician active as a geometer and logician. Considered the "father of geometry", he is chiefly known for the '' Elements'' treatise, which established the foundations of geometry that largely domina ...

and

James Webb Space Telescope The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a space telescope designed to conduct infrared astronomy. As the largest telescope in space, it is equipped with high-resolution and high-sensitivity instruments, allowing it to view objects too old, Lis ...

. In 2022, Coogan was selected by the

to join the

2022 European Space Agency Astronaut Group The 2022 European Space Agency Astronaut Group is the latest class of the European Astronaut Corps. The selection recruited five "career" astronauts as well as 12 "reserve/project" astronauts (including one "astronaut with a physical disability" ...

. She said that she applied to the space programme because she wanted to get "hands-on" with contributing the most that we can from space. Coogan completed ESA's Basic Training curriculum at the

European Astronaut Centre The European Astronaut Centre (EAC) (German: Europäisches Astronautenzentrum, French: Centre des astronautes européens), is an establishment of the European Space Agency and home of the European Astronaut Corps. It is near to Cologne, Germany, ...

, and graduated on 22 April 2024 alongside her classmates from "The Hoppers" group.

Selected publications

* * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coogan, Rosemary 1991 births Living people Alumni of the University of Sussex British astronauts British women astrophysicists Alumni of University College, Durham European Space Agency personnel Astronaut candidates CNES researchers Women astronauts Scientists from Belfast