Gustav Arthur Cooper (February 9, 1902 – October 17, 2000)''Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014''. Social Security Administration. was an American

paleobiologist Paleobiology (or palaeobiology) is an interdisciplinary field that combines the methods and findings found in both the earth sciences and the life sciences. Paleobiology is not to be confused with geobiology, which focuses more on the interactio ...

. Cooper was born in College Point, Queens, and attended

Colgate University Colgate University is a private liberal arts college in Hamilton, New York. The college was founded in 1819 as the Baptist Education Society of the State of New York and operated under that name until 1823, when it was renamed Hamilton Theologi ...

. He graduated in 1924, staying on to receive a master's degree in 1926. He then attended Yale University, where he received his PhD in 1929. His dissertation was titled, "Stratigraphy of the Hamilton Group of New York." He met his future wife, Josephine Wells, while they were both studying geology at Yale. They married in 1930 and moved to Washington, D.C. In 1930, he got a job as assistant curator at the Division of Stratigraphic Paleontology in

United States National Museum The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

. He was promoted to a curator position in 1944 for the Division of Invertebrate Paleontology. In 1957, he became the head curator of the Department of Geology, and 6 years later became the chairman of the newly formed Department of Paleobiology. He became senior paleobiologist in 1967, after which he devoted his life to research. He retired in 1974 with paleobiologist emeritus title. He died in 2000.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cooper, G. Arthur 1902 births 2000 deaths People from Queens, New York Paleobiologists Penrose Medal winners Colgate University alumni Yale University alumni