BARBARA COOPER

Barbara Hope Cooper Died Saturday August 7, 1999 at Cayuga Medical Center after a 6- month battle with cancer. She was 45. Born in Lancaster, PA in 1953, she was the daughter of Charles Burleigh & Hope Ferguson Cooper. She was raised in Newark, DE and graduated from Newark High School in 1971. She graduated from Cornell University in 1976, and received her Ph.D. in physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1982. She then returned to Ithaca where she became the first woman to become a professor of physics at Cornell University. Professor Cooper was widely recognized in the physics community for her research in experimental surface physics, and received several national awards for her work. During her time at Cornell, she was very involved with graduate education and the development of campus-wide multidisciplinary research collaborations. Recently she had taken a special interest in grade school science education, and she developed science workshops in collaboration with her daughter, Katie. She is survived by her husband, Christopher Robert Myers & daughter Katherine Hope Myers Cooper; her parents; her sister, Jane Douglas Cooper of Cheshire, CT; & brother, Charles Burleigh Cooper, III of Redwood City, CA. She is also survived by nieces Sarah Hope & Julia Ruth Cooper Meakin; nephews, Burleigh Ethan Cooper, Ryan McOmber Cooper, & Karl William Cooper Meakin; her aunt & several cousins. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the American Cancer Society or to the Barbara Hope Cooper Memorial Fund c/o The Department of Physics, Clark Hall, Cornell University. There will be a Memorial Gathering for family, friends, students & colleagues on Sunday, September 12, 1999 at 1:30 p.m. at the Sage Chapel, Cornell University, with a reception immediately following.