Charles S. Cockell
Charles Cockell is a British astrobiologist who is professor of astrobiology in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh and co-director of the UK Centre for Astrobiology.
Education
Cockell received his undergraduate 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.Career
Cockell was a National Research Council Associate at the NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field from 1995 to 1998 and then a visiting scholar at Stanford University. He then worked at a microbiologist at the British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK from 1999 to 2005, before becoming Professor of Geomicrobiology with the Open University until 2011 and afterwards moving to the University of Edinburgh as Professor of Astrobiology. His scientific interests have focused on astrobiology, geomicrobiology and life in extreme environments. He has published many scientific papers and books in these areas.Cockell has also published extensively on the exploration of space. For example, he led the design study Project Boreas, which planned and designed a research station for the Martian North Geographical Pole from 2003 to 2006. He was the first chair of the Astrobiology Society of Britain. He has sat on numerous ESA and NASA working groups and panels focused on robotic and human space exploration.
UK Centre for Astrobiology
Cockell established the UK Centre for Astrobiology at the University of Edinburgh in 2011. It was set up as a UK node, formally affiliated as an international partner with the NASA Astrobiology Institute alongside other national nodes until the NAI's dissolution in 2019.In its first ten years, the UKCA launched and led a number of initiatives. It set up the world's first underground astrobiology laboratory in the Boulby Underground Science Laboratory, running a program MINAR which brought in international teams from NASA, ESA, India, and universities across the UK and internationally to study life in the deep subsurface and test planetary exploration equipment.
The UKCA led or was affiliated with over 150 scientific papers in this period. Its scientific interests sat at the interface of planetary sciences and biological sciences involving laboratory, field and space mission studies. For example, the Centre oversaw the launch and implementation of the first biological mining experiment in space on the International Space Station in support of long-term human space settlement demonstrating the use of microorganisms to mine economically important elements in space.
The centre also launched education initiatives. For example, the Centre hosted the astrobiology academy, an initiative to bring teachers together to develop curriculum that used astrobiology to teach science in schools. The initiative produced lesson plans that were used to launch astrobiology in Scottish primary and secondary schools in association with the Scottish government's RAISE programme. The material became part of the National Resource Guide and the National Education Portal. It has been used to teach astrobiology across India in collaboration with the A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Centre, reaching tens of thousands of students.
In 2016, the centre, in collaboration with the Scottish Prison Service, launched Life Beyond, which involved prisoners in the design of settlements beyond Earth. Scottish prisoners published two books on settlement designs for the Moon and Mars. This led to the development of a distance learning Life Beyond course, which can be undertaken by any prisoner around the world, and distributed to English and Welsh prisons in collaboration with the Prisoners' Education Trust. Life Beyond was cited by EuroPris as an example of best education practice in European prisons.
Expeditions
Cockell has led or taken part in a number of expeditions. In 1993 Cockell piloted a modified microlight aircraft over the rainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia that he designed for catching moths over the canopy. The Barnes Wallis Moth Machine had lights for nighttime flying, UV lights to attract moths and a net for scooping moths from the rainforest canopy. The moth machine was flown during an expedition to the Kerinci-Seblat National Park which also collected plants and insects as part of a biodiversity study. The expedition had the patronage of RAF's No. 617 Squadron. During the expedition the moth machine clipped the top of a tree and crashed. Over 5,000 moths were caught which were sent to Germany for biodiversity assessments.In 1997 he was elected an International Fellow of The Explorers Club. Cockell has led or taken part in other scientific expeditions around the world, including over 20 scientific field expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic, the Atacama Desert, the Namib Desert, Iceland and elsewhere.