Karen Jean Meech
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Karen J. Meech is an astronomer at the Institute for Astronomy in the University of Hawaii. Meech specializes in planetary astronomy, in particular the study of distant comets and their relation to the early solar system. She is also very active in professional-amateur collaboration and science teacher education and is a co-founder of the Towards Planetary Systems (TOPS) program that helps educate science teachers in the Pacific islands. She received her Ph.D. in Planetary Sciences in 1987 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has received several awards in her career, including the Annie J. Cannon Award in Astronomy in 1988 and the American Astronomical Society's H. C. Urey Prize in 1994. She is currently a co-investigator on the Deep Impact mission and is a council member of the American Association of Variable Star Observers.
Asteroid 4367 Meech, discovered by Schelte J. Bus on March 2, 1981, is named in her honor.