Dr. Robert S. Cooper

Dr. Robert S. Cooper was named Director of Goddard Space Flight Center on July 1, 1976, and for the year before that, had served as Deputy Director at the center. He served in this position until June of 1979. He came to Goddard from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where he had been an Assistant Director for Defense Research and Engineering from August 1972.

Prior to joining Defense, Cooper spent six years as a manager and research engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT’s) Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Mass. From 1963 to 1966, he was an assistant professor at MIT.

He received his B.S.E.E. degree from the University of Iowa in 1954; his M.S.E.E. from Ohio State University in 1958, where he was a Westinghouse Fellow; his Sc.D. degree in electrical engineering from MIT in 1963; and he was a Ford Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow at MIT from 1963 to 1965. He served for two years in the Air Force.

Cooper was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society, the Society of Sigma Xi, Tau Beta Pi and Eta Kappa Nu. In 1975, he was awarded the Secretary of Defense Meritorious Civilian Service Award for his achievements at Defense.