Cooper Schouten

Biography

Dr Cooper Schouten is the project leader for the Bees for Sustainable Livelihoods Research Group and Lecturer at Southern Cross University. Cooper specialises in international agricultural research and has extensive beekeeping research, capacity building, training and extension experience working throughout of the Indo-Pacific region with local government, private sector and NGO’s.

Research

Cooper has produced 12 peer-reviewed publications in the 2019-21 period and has recently completed two Small Research Activities and final reports for ACIAR (AH/2015/002 and LS/2017/100). Cooper currently oversees a four year ACIAR project in PNG and Fiji (LS/2014/42) with active research in the fields of honey bee nutrition, biosecurity, queen bee breeding, post-harvest handling and marketing, and gender equity and participatory approaches to apiculture.

Community engagement

Cooper is an editorial board member of the journal Bee World and is an active member of the NSW Apiarists Association. Cooper participates in online beekeeping forums, offers beekeeping mentoring and extension services and his work seeks to enhance economic development and partnerships between the Australia-Pacific beekeeping sector. His research has an industry engaged focus which seeks to provide direct benefits to the honey bee industries in the Pacific and improve outcomes for honey bee biosecurity and conditions to safeguard food security in Australia.

Supervision

Cooper has overseen supervision of three Integrated Projects and one Honours student. He currently supervises a Masters by research and three Ph.D. candidates.

Teaching

Cooper has experience developing and delivering undergraduate science units in Regenerative Agriculture and tutoring and lectures for Pest and Disease Management, Protected Area Management, Ecology, Plant Identification and Conservation and Science in Society. Cooper has developed, implemented and reviewed training, extension and educational materials for the beekeeping industries in PNG and Fiji with local government, private sector and NGO’s.