Rate My Professor Alan F. Cooper

Emeritus Professor Alan F. Cooper is a petrologist in the Department of Geology, Sciences Division, University of Otago. He obtained a BSc (Hons) from the University of Sheffield and a PhD from the University of Otago, commencing his doctoral studies in 1966 under Professor D.S. Coombs on metamorphic and igneous rocks in the Haast River area, south Westland. His career at Otago includes appointments as Teaching Fellow (1966), Lecturer (1970), Senior Lecturer (1977), Associate Professor (1992), and Professor (2002), delivering his Inaugural Professorial Lecture that year. He previously served as Head of the Department of Geology. Cooper has taken study leaves at the University of Toronto, University of Edinburgh, University of Cape Town (twice), and La Trobe University. His fieldwork extends to collaborative studies on a major carbonatite complex in the Namib Desert, Namibia, and Antarctic expeditions since 1989, including five visits to southern Victoria Land.

Cooper's research focuses on metamorphic mineralogy and petrology of the Haast Schists; petrogenesis of carbonatites and New Zealand ultramafic lamprophyre dyke swarms; structure and activity of the Alpine Fault; mantle petrology; and the Ross Orogen in Antarctica. He has authored over 60 peer-reviewed publications, garnering more than 5,400 citations and an h-index of 41 according to Scopus. Key works include 'Hydrous veined mantle lithosphere and implications for the source of Zealandia intraplate magmas' (Lithos, 2024, with N.P. Cooper et al.); 'Basanite cobbles in Pleistocene sediments in Central Otago' (New Zealand Journal of Geology & Geophysics, 2024, with J.M. Scott et al.); 'Origin and evolution of nephrites, diopsidites and giant diopside crystals from the contact zones of the Pounamu Ultramafics' (New Zealand Journal of Geology & Geophysics, 2023); 'Uplifted Marine Terraces Along the Alpine Fault, New Zealand' (Science, 1986, with W.B. Bull); and numerous papers on the Alpine Fault. He has supervised over 20 postgraduate students for PhD and MSc theses. Cooper has contributed to Foundation for Research, Science and Technology advisory committees and served as President of the New Zealand Mineralogical Society.