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Barbara Hope Cooper (physicist)

Barbara Hope Cooper (Born Sept. 1, 1953)

Developed experimental and analytical tools for studying metal surfaces using low-energy ion interactions to obtain detailed information about scattering and electron transfer processes and creator of one of the leading laboratories in her field. The first woman professor in experimental physics at Cornell, and winner of the American Physical Society's Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award for outstanding achievement, she was led collaborations at Cornell's multidisciplinary research centers, including the Cornell Center for Materials Research (CCMR) and the Cornell High-Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS).

[a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation (1985-89) and faculty development awards from IBM and AT&T. In 1992 she won the American Physical Society's Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award for outstanding achievement in the early years of her car

Cooper's impact went far beyond her own research group. In recent years her scientific leadership was increasingly vital to two of the She had an unusual talent for organizing large, diverse

groups of scientists and engineers into effective collaborations. She was a key leader in an initiative now under way to build a new facility at CHESS that will provide a unique, dedicated X-ray facility for materials research. She also served on the executive committee of the CCMR and the general committee of the Graduate School.

Her talents were widely recognized in the national and international physics communities. She received a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation (1985-89) and faculty development awards from IBM and AT&T. In 1992 she won the American Physical Society's Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award for outstanding achievement in the early years of her career.

She published more than 45 scientific journal articles and scholarly reviews and regularly received invitations to speak at scientific conferences around the world.

Cooper entered Cornell as an undergraduate in 1971, intending to prepare for medical school. Her studies were interrupted during her sophomore year by a serious back injury from a diving accident. Unable to take classes for a semester, she obtained an undergraduate research position at Cornell's Laboratory of Nuclear Studies and became interested in physics. She graduated from Cornell with a bachelor's degree in physics in 1976.

A dedicated teacher, Cooper pressed for hands-on student exploration, fashioning compelling activities to reveal fundamental scientific concepts. At Cornell, she rebuilt introductory physics laboratory curricula, providing students with concrete examples of difficult physical concepts. Collaborating with her 8-year-old daughter, Katie, she took a special interest in outreach programs introducing elementary school students to science. The experiments she and her daughter developed were aimed at captivating young students' interest in science. She regularly visited local classrooms to implement the programs. Cooper was an admired research supervisor and successfully guided a dozen students through their Ph.D.s at Cornell.

Cooper is survived by her husband, Christopher Robert Myers, a senior research associate in the Cornell Theory Center; her daughter, Katherine Hope Myers Cooper; her parents, Charles Burleigh Cooper, emeritus professor of physics at the University of Delaware, and Hope Ferguson Cooper, both of Ithaca; her sister, Jane Douglas Cooper of Cheshire, Conn.; and her brother, Charles Burleigh Cooper III of Redwood City, Calif.]

obit from Cornell press