Athena Coustenis is Director of Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) with the Laboratoire d’Etudes Spatiales et d’Instrumentation en Astrophysique (LESIA) of Paris-Meudon Observatory, France. She earned her Ph.D.  in Astrophysics and Space techniques from Univ. Paris 7 (P. & M. Curie) in 1989. Dr. Coustenis works in the field of planetology. Her research is devoted to the investigation of planetary atmospheres and surfaces, with emphasis on Titan, Saturn’s largest satellite. She has also contributed to an effort to uncover the nature of the atmosphere surrounding the newly found extrasolar planets. Dr. Coustenis has led many observational campaigns from the ground using large telescopes (CFHT, UKIRT, VLT, etc) and has used the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) to conduct planetary investigations. She is Co-Investigator of three of the instruments (CIRS, HASI, DISR) aboard the Cassini/Huygens space mission to Saturn and Titan, into which she involved from the beginning of the development phase. Since 2009, she is also involved, as European co-Lead, in the Jupiter-Ganymede mission (Laplace/JUICE), to study Ganymede and the Jupiter’s system, currently planned for launch by ESA in 2022. Coustenis' term as IAMAS President runs from 2011 to 2015.