Isabel Trecco Hawkins (born 1958) is an Argentine-American astronomer and science educator.
Formerly a researcher in the isotopic composition of the interstellar medium and on the cosmic microwave background at the University of California, Berkeley, her interests have shifted to science popularization, as a senior scientist for the Exploratorium in San Francisco.
[1] She became interested in astronomy at age 10 through a book provided by a traveling encyclopedia salesman,[3] through sleeping under the stars in summers at a family ranch in San Francisco del Chañar, and through a birthday visit to the Galileo Galilei Planetarium.
[4] She first came to the United States as an exchange student in high school, in Los Altos, California,[4] choosing to do so in part because no telescopes were available in Argentina.
[4][5] Returning to the US a year later,[3] she earned a bachelor's degree in physics at the University of California, Riverside,[4] married her American high school sweetheart,[3][4] and completed a Ph.D. in 1986 at the University of California, Los Angeles.