Ian Cohen

Dr. Ian J. Cohen is a Principal Professional Staff member and supervisor of the Solar and Space Physics Group within APL’s Space Exploration Sector (SES). His research interests focus on experimental space physics—specifically including planetary magnetospheres, magnetosphere–ionosphere coupling, energetic particle dynamics, mission formulation, and plasma and energetic particle instrumentation—as well as operational and national security applications. He previously served as SES’s deputy chief scientist. Dr. Cohen currently serves as lead for the Energetic Particle Detector (EPD) investigation aboard NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission and previously served as deputy project scientist for NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission.

Dr. Cohen is also principal investigator of several research grants for NASA and is a subject-matter expert concerning various aspects of heliophysics, planetary science, and space weather. He has served on both the Panel on the Physics of Magnetospheres for the 2024–2033 Decadal Survey for Solar and Space Physics (Heliophysics) and the NASA Outer Planets Assessment Group Steering Committee. He was the science lead for the first-ever national space weather tabletop exercise and serves on the Space Weather Advisory Group. He is first author of over 15 and coauthor of over 110 peer-reviewed scientific journal papers.

In addition to his mission leadership roles and research interests, Dr. Cohen is active in community leadership in solar and space physics advocacy. As former chair of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Space Physics and Aeronomy (SPA) Section’s Advocacy Committee and lead of the Heliophysics Coalition, he was responsible for coordinating engagement and messaging between the solar and space physics community and stakeholders and policymakers to educate on and promote the benefits of solar and space physics research.