Carolyn Shoemaker. Portrait of Carolyn Shoemaker, American planetary geologist and astronomer. Shoemaker graduated from Chico State College in California, USA, before working at the US Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Arizona, USA. From 1980 she and her husband, Eugene Shoemaker, engaged in a systematic survey of asteroids and comets, becoming the most successful comet finders of the 20th century. In collaboration with David Levy, the Shoemaker's discovered comet Shoemaker- Levy 9 in 1993. This comet collided with Jupiter in June 1994.