Dr Natalie Cooper

Dr Natalie Cooper

Senior Researcher

Department: Life Sciences
Division: LS Vertebrates Division
  • Phone: 207942 5083

Summary

My research sits at the interface between macroecology and macroevolution, and aims to understand broad-scale patterns of biodiversity. I use cutting-edge phylogenetic comparative methods, morphological data collected from museum specimens, phylogenies, ecological data, species geographic range maps, fossils and various larger databases, to investigate a variety of questions. Current research in the group spans macroevolution, ecology, conservation and social science, and uses living and extinct taxa including fishes, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals. I also critique and develop phylogenetic comparative methods.

Qualifications

Degrees

  • PhD, Imperial College London, United Kingdom, 2005 - 2009
  • MSc, Imperial College London, United Kingdom, 2004 - 2005
  • BSc, University of Exeter, United Kingdom, 2001 - 2004

Academic

  • Assistant Professor, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, 2012 - 2015
  • Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University, United States, 2010 - 2011
  • Postdoctoral Associate, Yale University, United States, 2009 - 2010

Highlighted publications

  • Cooper N, Clark AT, Lecomte N, Qiao H, Ellison AM (2024) Harnessing large language models for coding, teaching and inclusion to empower research in ecology and evolution. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 15, 1757 - 1763. doi: 10.1111/2041-210x.14325
  • Park T, Burin G, Lazo-Cancino D, Rees JPG, Rule JP, Slater GJ, Cooper N (2024) Charting the course of pinniped evolution: insights from molecular phylogeny and fossil record integration. Warnock R, Zelditch M (Eds). Evolution 78, 1212 - 1226. doi: 10.1093/evolut/qpae061
  • Wainwright T, Trevena M, Alewijnse SR, Campbell PD, Jones MEH, Streicher JW, Cooper N (2024) Sex biases and the scarcity of sex metadata in global herpetology collections. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 142, 308 - 318. doi: 10.1093/biolinnean/blad129
  • Burin G, Park T, James TD, Slater GJ, Cooper N (2023) The dynamic adaptive landscape of cetacean body size. Current Biology 33, 1787 - 1794.e3. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.03.014
  • Guillerme T, Bright JA, Cooney CR, Hughes EC, Varley ZK, Cooper N, Beckerman AP, Thomas GH (2023) Innovation and elaboration on the avian tree of life. Science Advances 9, doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adg1641
  • Sanders NJ, Cooper N, Davis Rabosky AR, Gibson DJ (2023) Leveraging natural history collections to understand the impacts of global change. Journal of Animal Ecology 92, 232 - 236. doi: 10.1111/1365-2656.13882
  • Cooper N, Bond AL, Davis JL, Portela Miguez R, Tomsett L, Helgen KM (2019) Sex biases in bird and mammal natural history collections. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 286, 20192025 - 20192025. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2019.2025
  • Trueman CN, Jackson AL, Chadwick KS, Coombs EJ, Feyrer LJ, Magozzi S, Sabin RC, Cooper N Combining simulation modeling and stable isotope analyses to reconstruct the last known movements of one of Nature’s giants. PeerJ 7, e7912 - e7912. doi: 10.7717/peerj.7912

Additional links

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