Warrick Couch

Warrick John Couch (born 1954) is an Australian professional astronomer. He is a professor at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne. He was previously the Director of Australia's largest optical observatory, the Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO). He was also the president of the Australian Institute of Physics (2015–2017), and a non-executive director on the Board of the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization. He was a founding non-executive director of Astronomy Australia Limited.

His principal research area is the study of how galaxies form and evolve, with a particular focus on the role that their environment plays. This research has involved major observational programs using many of the largest ground-based optical telescopes (Gemini, VLT, AAT, ESO 3.6m, NTT) as well as space-based telescopes (Hubble, Chandra, ROSAT).

Couch is recognized as one of the most highly cited researchers in his field. He was a member of the Supernova Cosmology Project, where his research contributed to the Nobel Prize winning work on the accelerating expansion of the universe, he was a joint winner of the Gruber Prize in Cosmology in 2007 for his role in the discovery of the accelerating universe, and a joint winner of the 2015 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics which "recognizes major insights into the deepest questions of the Universe". He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand.