Yuki Okoda is a Japanese astronomer. She made headlines while she was a physics graduate student in her 2nd year of Masters at the University of Tokyo's School of Science. Okoda found a dense disk of material around a young star, which may be a precursor of a planetary system.[1][2] The star in question is known by its catalogue number IRAS 15398-3359.
Okoda and her colleagues are researching the formation of planetary systems through radio-wave observation using the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile.[3] In 2018 Okoda was named one of the 100 influential women in the world by the BBC.[4][3]