UTHSC News: ‘We’ve Just Had a Good Time Doing It,’ Terrance Cooper, PhD, Says of His Career in Research

Terrance (Terry) Cooper, PhD, developed his interest in biology while taking photomicrographs with direction from his biology professor as an undergraduate student at Wayne State University in the mid-1960s.

Now, Dr. Cooper, a researcher and Harriet Van Vleet professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Biochemistry in the College of Medicine, is a nationally and internationally recognized researcher, speaker, leader, mentor, and professor.

For 45 years, his research has continuously received support from the National Institutes of Health. Currently, he has published approximately 241 scientific publications, and gained 9,199 citations.

Dr. Cooper is ranked No. 6 among the Highly Ranked Scholars: Lifetime list by SholarGPS, the world's most comprehensive scholarly analytics platform, in the specialty on Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a species of baker's yeast. He ranks among the top 28 investigators on this list, which includes two Nobel Laureates and eight members of the United States National Academy of Sciences.

"I was surprised by it," Dr. Cooper said regarding his scientific ranking. "I didn't know about it. One of the editorial board members of the Journal of Biological Chemistry sent it to me. We've just had a good time doing research."

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