Rosemary Coogan

Rosemary Theresa Coogan (born 1991) is an astrophysicist and UK astronaut from Northern Ireland. Her research considers galaxy evolution and space-based telescopes. She is part of ESA's European Astronaut Corps.

Early life and education Coogan was 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 with the Sea Cadets. In 2009 she joined HMS Calliope and HMS Example, where she was made an Officer cadet.

Coogan studied for her undergraduate degree in Physics at University College, Durham. She graduated in 2013. Her research involved observations using the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope to study the 0.1 < Eγ < 300 GeV gamma-ray emission of radio quasars. Coogan also worked on data science 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 as a doctoral researcher, studying galaxy evolution and the activity of active galactic nuclei. 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. In Germany, Coogan studied galaxy evolution with space-based telescopes. In 2022, Coogan was appointed to the CNES, where she works on Euclid and James Webb Space Telescope. 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.

In June 2026, Coogan participated in the ESA CAVES 2026 course held in the Matese mountains in the Italian Apennines with her fellow astronauts Tracy Caldwell Dyson (NASA), Ayu Yoneda (JAXA), John McFall (ESA) and NASA astronaut candidate Ben Bailey.

In 2026, Coogan was awarded an honorary Doctor Of Science by Durham University.

Selected publications