Caren Cooper

Since January 2019, Cooper has worked at North Carolina State University, where she is an Associate Professor in Forestry and Environmental Resources.[7] She is a University Faculty Scholar, and is a member of the Chancellor's Faculty Excellence Cluster for Leadership in Public Science.[8] Much of her work is dedicated to developing public science programs that focus volunteers on generating "large-scale data to study and visualize the interactions between social and ecological systems."[7] She emphasizes equity, diversity, and inclusion in her efforts to educate the public about citizen science. Cooper coauthored a paper in the journal Science that explored these themes in more detail.[9] The paper subsequently led to National Science Foundation funding of A Conference on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Citizen Science, an ongoing program to be conducted between September 15, 2021 and August 31, 2022.[10]

During her time at NC State, Cooper has become faculty advisor to the university's first citizen science club.[11] She also helped design the NestWatch, Celebrate Urban Birds, and YardMap citizen science projects for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.[12] She contributed to and helps lead a successful $300,000 National Science Foundation grant to build citizen science capacity at underserved communities with the goal of improving public health and well-being.[13]

She served as assistant director of the Biodiversity Research Lab at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.[14][6] In 2011, she became a Senior Fellow for the Environmental Leadership Program (ELP).[15]

In 2020, Cooper gave the British Trust for Ornithology’s Witherby Memorial Lecture. On March 17, 2018, she gave the Paul F-Brandwein Lecture at the National Science Teachers Association Annual Meeting in Atlanta.[16] She presented a lecture at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Chicago in 2014, where she discussed how citizen science and contribute to political improvements.[17]

In 2016, Cooper published the book Citizen Science: How Ordinary People are Changing the Face of Discovery,[1] which discussed the roles, impact, and potential of citizen science. In 2020, she coauthored The Field Guide to Citizen Science: How You Can Contribute to Scientific Research and Make a Difference[2] with Darlene Cavalier and Catherine Hoffman, which discusses ways that individuals can get involved in citizen science.

From 2012 to 2016, she wrote a guest blog for Scientific American,[18] discussing the need to incorporate citizen inputs into scientific practices, policy, and activism. Cooper is one of the founding editors-in-chief for online journal Citizen Science Theory and Practice,[19] a peer-reviewed, scholarly journal sponsored by the Citizen Science Association that focuses on the practices and outcomes generated by citizen science. She currently serves as the journal's Special Collections Associate Editor.[20] She has also contributed papers to PLOS One.[21]

She also wrote as a blogger for Discover Magazine.[22]

Cooper is co-chair of the International Science Council’s Committee on Data (CODATA) task group on citizen science, known as Citizen Science and the Validation, Curation, and Management of Crowdsourced Data (with WDS).[23]

As a principal investigator, Cooper has led multiple projects with citizen science inputs. She heads the CrowdTheTap project, which is an EPA-funded effort to promote access to safe drinking water by helping individuals and groups investigate pipe materials delivering drinking water to homes.[24] Educators and private citizens input and access data through the project's website[Ibid.] or SciStarter.org. She also serves as the P.I. for Sound Around Town, a citizen science project designed to study noise levels in urban environments and how they affect people.[25] The project supports the National Park Service’s National Sound Map.[26][27] Additionally, she leads the SparrowSwap project, which collects and studies house sparrow eggs;[28][29] house sparrows are a non-native, invasive species.[30]

Cooper has been interviewed many times on the subject of citizen science. These interviews include Yale Environment 360[31] and Science Friday;[32] the "How on Earth" radio program on KGNU radio in Boulder, Colorado;[33] the Association of Science and Technology Centers’ ASTC On Air online program[34] the "Speaking of Science" online radio program;[35] The Science Show with Robyn Williams presented by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation;[36] the Sierra Club’s magazine Sierra;[37] and the online educational program Lab Out Loud.[38] In addition, she was profiled by Animal Behavior Associates, Inc.’s online "Chat with CAABS."[39]