Roger Cooper

Roger Alan Cooper (12 March 1939 – 2 March 2020) was a New Zealand paleontologist, known as a leading expert on the fossil zooplankton of the early Paleozoic and the paleobiology of Zealandia. Cooper became a Paleozoic paleontologist employed by the New Zealand Geological Survey in Lower Hutt. He led two Antarctican expeditions, one in 1974-1975 and the other in 1981–1982. With the support of a Nuffield Traveling Fellowship, awarded in 1979, he was on a leave of absence from the Geological Survey for 15 months studying graptolites at the Natural History Museum, London, and at the University of Cambridge. For eight years, starting in 1989, he was Chief Paleontologist at the Geological Survey (which was part of the Geophysical Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research). He managed the transition from the Geological Survey to the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences, which was completed in 1992. In 2005 the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences was renamed GNS Science. After his retirement, Cooper maintained an office at GNS Science and remained scientifically active.

Cooper was elected in 1988 a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi and during his career received several awards. He co-authored the current version of the geological map of the Nelson region.

Cooper was divorced from his first wife, Dorothy (Dot) Cooper. Upon his death he was survived by his second wife Robyn Cooper (m. 1991), his ex-wife, two children from his first marriage, two step-children, and several grandchildren.

Selected publications

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