He received his PhD from UCLA by investigating water balance in desert beetles. He obtained postdoctoral positions at University of Tennessee-Knoxville, University of Arizona and University of British Columbia and La Trobe University. Directly following this last position, in 1987 he was appointed as a contract lecturer at Australian National University. Cooper has lectured in physiological, behavioral and introductory ecology; invertebrate and vertebrate zoology; entomology; and courses in physiology.[3] He was awarded a 2015 Award for Excellence in Education by the ANU Colleges of Science.[4] Cooper's areas of expertise are life histories, crop and pasture protection (pests, diseases and weeds), invertebrate biology, comparative physiology, animal neurobiology, animal physiology biophysics, and animal physiology systems.[2]
