He served as chair of the department of biology for a number of years, and subsequently as associate dean of the faculty for the natural sciences in the university's college of arts & sciences.
Cooper earned his Ph.D. at the University of Miami in 1973, and was a postdoctoral fellow with nobel laureate, Howard Temin.
His work includes cellular growth control, cancer, and signal transduction.
More specifically, he focuses on "the roles of proto-oncogene proteins as elements of signal transduction pathways that control proliferation, differentiation, and survival of mammalian cells.
Cooper’s first novel, a medical thriller titled “The Prize”, was published in January 2018.