Prof. Cooper specialises in using ancient DNA to record and study evolutionary processes in real time, especially those associated with climate and environmental change, human impacts, public health and disease, geomagnetism and solar physics.
His work ranges from modern day to hundreds of thousands of years ago, including permafrost-preserved bones of animals and bacteria.
His research is characterised by multi-disciplinary approaches combining information from areas such as climate change, geology, archaeology, microbiology, and anthropology to generate novel methods to study evolution, population genetics, medical science and conservation.
Recent research include the study of early human movements around the world using ancient genomics, Australian Aboriginal Heritage, the impacts of climate change and humans including the extinction of megafauna, and the evolution of human microbiomes in response to changes in diet and culture - and the health consequences.
