Noelle E. Cockett

Noelle E. Cockett is an American geneticist who currently serves as president of Utah State University (USU).

Cockett grew up on a beef cattle ranch in Miles City, Montana. She received a masters and a doctorate in animal breeding and genetics from Oregon State University.

Cockett worked as a research geneticist at the United States Department of Agriculture, Agriculture Research Service U.S. Meat Animal Research Center in Clay Center, Nebraska. She joined Utah State University in 1990 as a researcher and assistant professor in the Department of Animal, Dairy and Veterinary Sciences in the College of Agriculture and Applied Sciences.

Cockett has been active in sheep genomics research. Her research program has centered on the identification of genetic markers associated with economically important traits in sheep, as well as the development of resources that advance research on the sheep genome. Cockett and her colleagues published an article describing the sheep genome sequence in Science in 2014. Cockett has served as the United States coordinator for sheep genome mapping since 1993 and is a member of the International Sheep Genomics Consortium.

Cockett was dean of the College of Agriculture and Applied Sciences at USU from 2002–2013, and director of the Utah Agriculture Experiment Station from 2009–2013. She USU as vice president for Extension from 2006 to 2013 and executive vice president and provost from 2013. She was appointed as Utah State University’s 16th president in October 2016, beginning her official tenure in January 2017. She is USU's first female president and the only female president with Utah's higher education system.

Cockett is married to John Cockett, director of technology in USU’s College of Education and Human Services. They have two children.

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