Karen J. Meech (born 1959) is an Americanplanetaryastronomer at theInstitute for Astronomy (IfA) of theUniversity of Hawaiʻi.^[2]

Karen Meech specializes inplanetary astronomy, in particular the study of distantcomets and their relation to the earlySolar System. She is also very active in professional-amateur collaboration and scienceteacher education and was the founder of theTowards Planetary Systems (TOPS) high-school teacher / student outreach program that helps educate science teachers in thePacific islands. She received herPhD in Planetary Sciences in 1987 at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology, and a BS fromRice University in Houston in 1981, and has received several awards in her career, including theAnnie J. Cannon Award in Astronomy in 1988 and theAmerican Astronomical Society'sH. C. Urey Prize in 1994.

She was a co-investigator on theDeep Impact mission and current co-investigator on the NASA Discovery missions EPOXI and Stardust-NExT. For all three of these missions she has coordinated the world's Earth-based and space-based observing programs. She is the primary investigator of the University of Hawaiʻi NASA Astrobiology Institute lead team which focuses its research on "Water and Habitable Worlds". She is currently the President of the International Astronomical Union Division III (Planetary Systems Science).

The outermain-belt asteroid4367 Meech, discovered bySchelte Bus at theSiding Spring Observatory in 1981, isnamed in her honor.^[3]

She was named a Fellow of theAmerican Astronomical Society in 2024, "for ground-breaking research on solar and extrasolar comets and water distribution in the solar system, organization of large international observing teams, development and management of planetary science programs for teachers, and many years of service to the astronomical community".^[4]

• Karen Jean Meech homepage at Institute for Astronomy
• Talk of Karen Jean Meech at the Origins 2011 congress

• 1959 births
• Living people
• 21st-century American women
• American women astronomers
• American astrobiologists
• American women biologists
• American women academics
• Discoveries by Karen Jean Meech
• Discoverers of minor planets
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni
• American women planetary scientists
• American planetary scientists
• Recipients of the Annie J. Cannon Award in Astronomy
• Rice University alumni
• Institute for Astronomy (Hawaii) people
• Fellows of the American Astronomical Society

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata