Rate My Professor Paul Cooper

Paul Cooper is an Associate Professor in the Division of Ecology and Evolution at the Australian National University’s Research School of Biology, serving as Honorary Group Leader of the Cooper Group on insect physiology, salt and water regulation. He obtained his PhD in Biology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1981, researching water balance in desert tenebrionid beetles Eleodes armata and Cryptoglossa verrucosa. After postdoctoral positions at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, University of Arizona, University of British Columbia, and La Trobe University, he was appointed as a contract lecturer at ANU in 1987. Cooper has taught courses in physiological, behavioural and introductory ecology, invertebrate and vertebrate zoology, entomology, and physiology.

His research examines neural and endocrine regulation of feeding in insects, physiology and ecology of aquatic macroinvertebrates with emphasis on salt and pH regulation as water quality indicators, and physiology and ecology of Australian agricultural insect pests. The Cooper Group investigates locust and grapevine scale biology alongside environmental physiology, employing confocal microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, x-ray micro-CT, and electrophysiological techniques. Key publications include 'Heat budgets and temperature regulation in honey bees foraging in the desert' (Journal of Experimental Biology, 1985), 'Mechanisms of hemolymph acid-base regulation in aquatic insects' (Physiological Zoology, 1994), 'Horizontal gene transfer underlies the painful stings of asp caterpillars' (PNAS, 2023), and 'Population structure, growth and reproduction in two species of Tympanocryptis' (Australian Journal of Zoology, 2025). He served as Editor-in-Chief of the Australian Journal of Zoology from 2011 to 2024. Awards include the 17th Australian Wine Industry Technical Conference Award (2020), Award for Excellence in Education (2015), and Commendation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning (2011).