Doris Daou

She has worked as an outreach and education specialist at Ames Research Center and for NASA's grant programs. From 2012–2018, Daou served as an associate of commissions for the International Astronomical Union, and has been involved in the following commissions:

Daou, D. (2009). Education and Public Outreach Initiatives from National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union. S260(5). DOI:10.1017/S1743921311003590

She is the creator and producer of the Ask an Astronomer video podcast. Her research interests include: observational astronomy, astrophysics, and astronomy, as well as solar systems, exoplanets, and international partnerships, and she actively publishes in science journals. In 2008, she co-authored Touch the Invisible Sky, which is a book written in Braille, and in 2017 she co-authored proceedings of the Planetary Science Vision 2050 Workshop as part of the Lunar and Planetary Institute. She

She then moved to Baltimore, Maryland, in the United States, where she spent nine years working on the Hubble Space Telescope. In 1999, Daou transferred to the team preparing to launch the Spitzer Space Telescope, where she worked in education and public outreach and helped found the Spitzer Space Telescope Research Program for Teachers and Students. She joined the NASA Headquarters in 2006, and has served the institution in a variety of roles, including Education and Public Outreach Program Officer, Director of Education and Public Outreach at the Ames Research Center, and the Ames Research Center's Associate Director of the Institute. She has been actively involved in NASA's grant programs. As of 2018, she continues her work as an astronomer at the NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., and serves as Senior Scientist, as Program Officer and Chief of Staff for the Director of the Planetary Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate (2014-Present).

Daou, D. (1998) NICMOS pointed thermal background: Results from on-orbit data, Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports (STAR). 36.

Daou, D. et al. (1990) Spectroscopic studies and atmospheric parameters of pulsating da white-dwarf (zz-ceti) stars, Astrophys. J. 364(1), 242–250. DOI: 10.1086/169407

Daou's family fled war-ravaged Lebanon when she was a child, and settled in Canada. Daou was educated at the Université de Montréal in Quebec, where she studied the atmospheric parameters of variable stars. She holds a B.Sc in Physics and Mathematics, as well as a M.Sc in Astronomy and Astrophysics. Her PhD dissertation in 1989 was titled, Études spectroscopiques et paramètres atmosphériques des étoiles ZZ Ceti.

Doris Daou (born 1964) is a Lebanese-born astronomer from Canada who was formerly the Director for Education and Public Outreach of the NASA Lunar Science Institute and the Associate Director of the NASA Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI), and is currently the program contact for NASA's "Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx)".