Mr Cooper Nat Schouten

Biography

Dr Cooper Schouten is a Senior Research Fellow and Director of Southern Cross Universities Bee Research and Extension Lab. Coopers research focuses on strategic beekeeping industry development with an engaged and applied focus which seeks to provide direct benefits to beekeeping businesses. Cooper has international beekeeping research, capacity building, training and extension experience working in several countries in the Indo-Pacific region. He is a keen beekeeper with experience working with commercial beekeeping operations.

Cooper’s work contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals

Research

Cooper currently oversees two 4 year ACIAR projects in PNG, Solomon Islands and Fiji https://www.aciar.gov.au/project/LS-2014-042 LS/2014/42; AGB/2022/113) with active research in the fields of agribusiness, honey bee nutrition, biosecurity, varroa mite IPM, queen bee breeding, post-harvest handling and marketing, and gender equity and participatory approaches to apiculture.

Community engagement

Cooper is an Executive Member of the Australian Honey Bee Industry Council, is an editorial board member of the journal Bee World and is an active member of the NSW Apiarists Association.

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 demonstrated experience at constantly developing and delivering undergraduate science units with an unit satisfaction score of over 89%. Cooper has taught in Regenerative Agriculture, 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.