Cohen is from upstate New York.[1] She earned a bachelor's degree in
geology from
State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1993.[1] She joined
Phi Beta Kappa during her studies.[1] She moved to the
University of Arizona for her doctoral studies, where she received a University of Arizona Graduate College Fellowship and NASA Graduate Student Research Program Fellowship, and graduated in 2000.[2] Here Cohen looked to understand impact rates on the moon using microbeam analysis and
Argon–argon dating of
lunar meteorites. She identified that
clastic rock in
lunar meteorites are different from samples from Apollo, and have ages consistent with
Late Heavy Bombardment.[2][3][4] While at the University of Arizona, she also led a study into various physical properties of chili.[5]
In 2007 Cohen joined
Marshall Space Flight Center to support the planning for human exploration of the Moon for the
Lunar Precursor Robotic Program.[2][9] She led the MSFC planetary science team[10] and was the lead US project scientist for the
International Lunar Network, a proposed mission to understand the Moon's composition.[11] She is the Principal Investigator of the
Marshall Space Flight Center (now Mid-Atlantic) Noble Gas Research Laboratory (MNGRL), using noble-gas isotopes to understand the temperature-time histories of rocks and meteorites.[12][13] The MNGRL lab is being used to analyze Apollo samples that have been opened for the first time in 50 years.[14][15] Conscious that the MNGRL was so large, she developed a rover-sized
Potassium-argon laser experiment (KArLE).[16][17]
Cohen is the principal investigator for the
Lunar Flashlight mission, a
CubeSat mission aboard the first flight of the Space Launch System that will search for water ice on the Moon.[18][19][20][21] She is the principal investigator for PITMS,[22] a mass spectrometer manifested on the first Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) mission,[23] and a co-Investigator on Heimdall and SAMPLR, instruments that will fly on a subsequent CLPS mission.[24]
Cohen was Associate Principal Investigator of the
Mars rovers
Spirit and
Opportunity, where she was identifying the nature and origins of Martian impact material.[25] She is a member of the science team for the Curiosity rover and is a Returned Sample Scientist for the Perseverance rover mission.
Cohen is a member of the
American Geophysical Union and has been part of several committees.[31] She is a member of
The Planetary Society.[32] Cohen won the 2018 Angioletta Coradini Mid-Career Award from NASA's Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI).[33] She is a 2018 Fellow of the Meteoritical Society.[34]
^Cohen, Barbara a; Server, Nasa Technical Reports (2013-06-27). The Lunar Quest Program and the International Lunar Network. BiblioGov.
ISBN9781289080426.