[8] She taught English as a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand, journeyed by motorcycle from Bangkok to London and received an anthropology diploma from the University of Oxford.

Her photographs have appeared in National Geographic, Smithsonian and Natural History magazines as well as several dozen books and journals.

[7] One day she met a young kid named Edwin Serrano (He3) who helped expose her to some of the graffiti around her neighborhood.

[7] After meeting with Dondi, Cooper became fascinated with the underground subculture that these graffiti artists had created in New York City.

[11] In the 1980s, Cooper worked briefly in Belize photographing the people and archaeological remains of the Mayan culture at sites such as Nohmul and Cuello.