Josephine Cooper

Josephine Wells Cooper (June 10, 1905 – December 19, 2010) was an American geologist. Married to Smithsonian Institution paleobiologist G. Arthur Cooper for seventy years, she spent much of her life studying fossils alongside her husband. Cooper worked for the United States Geological Survey and became an expert translator of geological articles published in Soviet Russia.

Early life and education

Josephine P. Wells on June 10, 1905, in Iowa City, Iowa. They married in 1930 and moved to Washington, D.C., where he started his work at the Smithsonian Institution. In 1966, she was one of the founders of the Ladies Advisory Committee of the Smithsonian Society of Associates, later known as the Smithsonian Women's Committee, which raised funds for educational and other Smithsonian activities.

Cooper began working in the 1950s at the Names Committee of the United States Geological Survey. She became so proficient that she was a translating resource for geologists throughout the English-speaking world. They traveled throughout the world together in later life before he died in 2000.