Jim Cooper, PhD
Washington University, St. Louis
11-223, 756-1251, jbcooper@calpoly.edu
Dr. Cooper earned his BS degree in Biology from Lebanon Valley College, and his PhD in Plant Biology from Washington University in St. Louis. From 1983 to 1988, he conducted postdoctoral research at ARCO Solar and Stanford University, and worked was a faculty member in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at UC Santa Barbara from 1988 to 2012. He received a Young Investigator Award from President George Bush in 1989, and served at UCSB as Director of the BioMolecular Science and Engineering Program (interdepartmental program with faculty from 8 science and engineering departments) from 1998-2000, and as Associate Dean of Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences from 2000 to 2006. He joined the wine industry working for Tensley Wines in Los Olivos, CA from 2008 to 2012, and founded a small enology testing and consulting company in 2010. Dr. Cooper joined the Cal Poly faculty in July 2012.
Cooper's research interests include plant cell wall biochemistry, plant-microbe interactions, and data-mining from large multidimensional datasets using bioinformatics. His wine research interests at Cal Poly include understanding the determinants of grape and wine chemical attributes, characterizing the role of rhizosphere microbiology in grapevine establishment, and applying modern genetic technology to develop drought-tolerant, salt-tolerant, and disease-resistant rootstock.
