Adrienne Cooper
Adrienne Cooper
Dr. Adrienne Cooper, a former environmental engineering professor, says finding green applications for new technologies is the primary motivation for her work. Her research focuses on catalytic processes with two primary applications: designing biocatalytic processes for green engineering and photocatalytic water treatment and remediation. Dr. Copper has over three decades of experience across government, higher education, and industry. Her distinguished career across these sectors makes her an expert in many fields, including higher education leadership, diversity education, strategic planning, and engineering. She has also written numerous articles on the intersection of science and technology.
“Not working in the environmental field, especially as someone who’s in technology, would be irresponsible.”
- Adrienne Cooper, 2006.
II, Clayton & Cooper, Adrienne & Martin, Charlie & Pipkin, Leslie. (2012). Evaluation of Potential Degradation of Bisphenol A by Zero-Valent Iron (ZVI). Environmental Forensics. 13. 248-254. 10.1080/15275922.2012.702331.
Kwon, S., Fan, M., Cooper, A. T., & Yang, H. 2008. Photocatalytic applications of micro-and nano-TiO2 in environmental engineering. Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology, 38(3), 197-226.
Flora, J. R., & Cooper, A. T. 2005. Incorporating inquiry-based laboratory experiments in undergraduate environmental engineering laboratory. Journal of professional issues in engineering education and practice, 131(1), 19-25.
Watson, J. M., Cooper, A. T., & Flora, J. R. 2005. Nanoglued titanium dioxide aerogels for photocatalysis. Environmental Engineering Science, 22(5), 666-675.
Haselbach, Liv & Cooper, Adrienne & Flora, Joseph. 2003. Why is Environmental Engineering an Important Aspect of Environmental Education?. Journal of Environmental Engineering-ASCE, 129. 10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9372(2003)129:4(281).
Dr. Adrienne Cooper, the daughter of a university librarian mother and a physics professor father, always knew she was interested in science. Dr. Cooper went to work with her father often and knew by high school she wanted to help people. She did not, however, start out pursuing an environmental path.
She was inspired by an Arkansas Power and Light class visit to become an engineer after learning that engineers use math and science to help people. D. Cooper took pre-engineering classes at the University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff before transferring to the University of Tennessee. She majored in chemical engineering at the University of Tennessee.
Dr. Cooper decided to get her Ph.D. in environmental engineering from the University of Florida. She earned her doctorate in 1998.
After completing her bachelor’s degree at the University of Tennessee, Dr. Cooper joined the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1979 as an Engineering Associate. She first worked in the river management division and later in wastewater treatment and nuclear waste.
In 1984, Dr. Cooper became an E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Company Engineer at Jackson Laboratory in Delaware. While Dr. Cooper was employed in a DuPont facility that manufactured Freon, a group from Greenpeace showed up to protest. “They hung a huge banner on the water tower that said ‘Number One Ozone Depleter,’” Dr. Cooper recalls. “It was then that I sort of realized the impact of what I was doing on the environment” (2016). Dr. Cooper’s environmental consciousness grew slowly over the rest of her time at DuPont, to the point where - when offered a “wonderful opportunity” in the company’s CFC’s division – Dr. Cooper’s “first thought was, ‘You mean a wonderful opportunity to deplete the ozone layer?’” (2016). Dr. Cooper recalls, laughing. She took the job but knew she would soon have to move into a different career.
Dr. Cooper received a National Science Foundation Fellowship and worked and studied at the National Institute of Materials Research in Japan. From 1994 to 1995, Dr. Cooper was an Environmental Engineer at Alachua County Environmental Protection Department.
After earning her Ph.D. in 1998, Dr. Cooper became an Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of South Carolina. In 2003, after five years in South Carolina, she moved to Temple University to be an Assistant Professor. In 2009, she became an Associate Professor and Program Coordinator at Florida A&M University, teaching biological and agricultural systems engineering.
From 2012 to 2013, Dr. Cooper was the Associate Vice President of Research, Economic Development, and Public Service at South Carolina State University. In August 2013, Dr. Cooper returned to Florida as Associate Provost of Bethune-Cookman University. In 2019, she joined Florida Memorial University (FMU) as Provost and Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs. In 2021, Dr. Cooper became the Vice Provost for Institutional Research and Effectiveness at FMU.
In May 2022, Dr. Cooper founded Manden Strategy, LLC, an organization dedicated to building community and capacity. They work with agriculture, small businesses, and higher education groups to increase sustainability, environmental, economic, and social dimensions. Dr. Cooper is also the CEO of Manden Strategy. In August 2022, Dr. Cooper became a Senior Associate at Tougaloo College Research and Development Foundation.
Although very satisfied with her unanticipated career in the environmental field, Dr. Cooper expresses frustration with the apathy she sometimes encounters from students, colleagues, and people in power. She finds this apathy particularly distressing when it comes from the African American community, which often suffers the brunt of environmental degradation. “Quite often, as an African American, it’s not always clear to those in our community the connection between the environment and our everyday lives,” Dr. Cooper says (2016). “It really ends up being a very strong connection. I think Hurricane Katrina made it a little more obvious, but it’s still hard to get people to see it” (2016). A whole host of environmental issues—from cancer and asthma rates to water and air quality—disproportionately impact black and other minority communities but are often dismissed as being “less important” than other issues.
To remedy these inequalities, Dr. Cooper believes that more minority participation in the environmental field and increased awareness of connections between environmental issues and other problems are necessary. “I think that as black people in this country, we tend to think that we have more pressing, immediate needs than the environment,” she says. “But in the end, it turns out that many of those issues that we think of as pressing and immediate are tied to the environment. We can’t make all those other things go away without considering it as part of the equation” (2016).
“When I look and see the things that are going on around me every day, it makes it that much clearer to me that the work I do needs to be done, and we need more people doing it,” says Dr. Cooper. She says finding green applications for new technologies is the primary motivation for her work. Indeed, she believes it is the only responsible thing for someone with her skills and background. “We still have people dying in this world from lack of access to clean water,” she says. “In lots of ways, our environment is getting worse, not better. We still have a group of people—people in power—who refuse to accept that we need to make changes in order to maintain human existence. Not working in the environmental field, especially as someone who’s in technology, would be irresponsible” (2016).
Dr. Cooper never expected to be a teacher, especially not in higher education administration. Regardless, after several years of teaching and two trusted mentors suggesting she would excel in administration, Dr. Cooper became a skilled and successful provost for several institutions. Dr. Cooper worked at several HBCUs, where she strove to serve the students’ needs and help HBCUs stay culturally relevant.
Various people have shaped Dr. Cooper’s career choices and interests, each in a unique way. “I’ve had several people who have played very specific roles, as opposed to one individual who was my go-to person,” she explains (2016). Dr. Cooper says her father was probably her first and most important mentor; he was also her inspiration to become a scientist. “He taught physics, and I would sit in on his classes,” she recalls. “He would get up at four in the morning to help me with my algebra until I could figure out what was going on. He had more patience than any one human being should be allowed to have (2016)”. Dr. Cooper says her father would take every opportunity to point out instances and applications of science in the everyday world, something that influenced her as a teacher and scientist. “He was an excellent teacher,” Dr. Cooper says. “I remember not understanding why he was a teacher—he could have made much more money doing other things. But now I understand” (2016).
Dr. Cooper received support and help from her dissertation advisors, Tom Crisman and Yogi Goswami. Another dissertation advisor, Jonathan Earl, an associate dean at the University of Florida, “was there for me all throughout my graduate career and ever after,” Dr. Cooper says. “His whole family became my substitute family” (2016).
While finding her way as an African American woman in a predominantly white-male field, Dr. Cooper found inspiration in a group of women she worked with at DuPont. “This was a group of women who were about as high a flyer as a black woman could be in corporate America at that time,” she says. “They helped me clearly identify who I was, where I wanted to go, and how to do what I wanted to do without compromising” (2016).
Dr. Cooper‘s transition to teaching was not always easy; her “first set of class evaluations was a disaster” (2016). Regardless, Dr. Cooper enjoys the opportunity to positively impact students’ lives, even if she does so unknowingly. She says that her relationship with a student from South Carolina, who asked her advice about whether or not he should take a job opportunity in Ohio, has been a career highlight. “I basically told him he would be stupid not to take it—in retrospect, I probably should have been more diplomatic about it,” Dr. Cooper laughs. “As it turns out, I was the only one who encouraged him to. He did, and it opened up a whole new world for him.” Dr. Cooper says her most challenging and rewarding mentorship role has been as a mother to her son. “It helps that I’m doing work to make sure he has something to look forward to when he grows up,” she says (2016).
For someone who had no intention of being a teacher herself, Dr. Cooper has found unexpected satisfaction in mentoring students. While she sometimes considers formal mentoring programs “forced,” she takes opportunities to mentor in whatever capacity. “Given the opportunity, I do it—inside of the field or outside, I don’t separate them out,” Dr. Cooper says. “I’ve had a number of students, many African American, work with me. I have a McNair scholar right now. In any of those cases if the students are doing what they want to do, I count it as a success” (2016).
After being appointed provost at Florida Memorial University, Dr. Cooper shared some advice to STEM students in an interview with MCB Blog. She said, “I have two pieces of advice: Learn deeply and be open-minded, generous of heart. By learning deeply, I mean to know what you know but also be willing to hear what people have to say – and to dismiss what’s not helpful. Being generous of heart is especially important for under-represented minorities. Meet people where they are – be kind and generous – you’ll get a lot further” (2019).
The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. (2019, February 11). Adrienne Cooper Appointed Provost at Florida Memorial University | The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. https://jbhe.com/2019/02/adrienne-cooper-appointed-provost-at-florida-memorial-university/
Interview conducted by Multicultural Environmental Leadership Development Initiative staff. 2016. University of Michigan – School of Natural Resources and Environment. Ann Arbor, MI.
MCBBlog. 2019. Opportunities and Intention: never say never. https://mcbblog.nsfbio.com/2019/04/19/opportunity-and-intention-never-sa…