Charles S. Cockell

Charles Seaton Cockell (born 21 May 1967) is Professor of Astrobiology in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh and Director of the UK Centre for Astrobiology. He was previously the Professor of Geomicrobiology with the Open University and a microbiologist with the British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK. His scientific interests have focused on astrobiology, geomicrobiology and life in extreme environments including studies on volcanic and impact crater environments. He has also contributed to plans for the human exploration of Mars. He led the design study Project Boreas, which planned and designed a research station for the Martian North Pole. He was the first Chair of the Astrobiology Society of Britain.

Cockell received his first degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Bristol in 1989 and his D.Phil in Molecular Biophysics, University of Oxford in 1994. He was a National Academy of Sciences Associate at the NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field from 1995 to 1998 and then a visiting scholar at Stanford University.

Cockell is Chair of the Earth and Space Foundation, a registered British charity (1043871) which awards grants to expeditions that successfully bridge the gap between environmentalism and the exploration and settlement of space by either using space technologies and ideas in environmental fieldwork or use environments on Earth to advance knowledge of other planets. He founded the organisation in 1994. Since its establishment the Foundation has supported over 60 field projects around the world. Cockell proposed the inseparable links between environmentalism and space exploration in a book Space on Earth (Macmillan, 2006). The book was winner of the best written presentation in the Sir Arthur Clarke Award 2007.

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