Barbara Hope Cooper, the first woman to be appointed a professor of physics at Cornell University, died Aug. 7 at Cayuga Medical Center here. She was 45. She had been under treatment for lung cancer for several months but was still actively involved with her research group of seven graduate students until the week of her death.

She obtained her Ph.D. in 1982 from the California Institute of Technology and remained at Caltech as a postdoctoral fellow until she was recruited by the Cornell Department of Physics in 1983 as an assistant professor. She was recognized as encouraging female students in physics, both as a mentor and an adviser. At the time of her death, more than half her graduate students were female.

Cooper is best known for her innovative experimental studies of low-energy ion interactions with metal surfaces. She began as a novice in this research field, with an empty laboratory and little money, but within a few years she had created one of the leading laboratories in her field. Working with her students and collaborators, she developed experimental and analytical tools necessary to obtain detailed information about scattering and electron transfer processes at surfaces. More recently, she extended her research program to investigate ion erosion and growth of metals using atomic-resolution microscopy and X-ray diffraction. Throughout her career, she realized the technological opportunities for her research; however, closest to her heart was a deep devotion to fundamental science.

Cooper's impact went far beyond her own research group. In recent years her scientific leadership was increasingly vital to two of the university's multidisciplinary research centers, the Cornell Center for Materials Research (CCMR) and the Cornell High-Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS). She had an unusual talent for organizing large, diverse

groups of scientists and engineers into effective collaborations. She was a key leader in an initiative now under way to build a new facility at CHESS that will provide a unique, dedicated X-ray facility for materials research. She also served on the executive committee of the CCMR and the general committee of the Graduate School.

Her talents were widely recognized in the national and international physics communities. She received a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation (1985-89) and faculty development awards from IBM and AT&T. In 1992 she won the American Physical Society's Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award for outstanding achievement in the early years of her career.

She published more than 45 scientific journal articles and scholarly reviews and regularly received invitations to speak at scientific conferences around the world.

Born Sept. 1, 1953, in Lancaster, Pa., Cooper entered Cornell as an undergraduate in 1971, intending to prepare for medical school. Her studies were interrupted during her sophomore year by a serious back injury from a diving accident. Unable to take classes for a semester, she obtained an undergraduate research position at Cornell's Laboratory of Nuclear Studies and became interested in physics. She graduated from Cornell with a bachelor's degree in physics in 1976.

A dedicated teacher, Cooper pressed for hands-on student exploration, fashioning compelling activities to reveal fundamental scientific concepts. At Cornell, she rebuilt introductory physics laboratory curricula, providing students with concrete examples of difficult physical concepts. Collaborating with her 8-year-old daughter, Katie, she took a special interest in outreach programs introducing elementary school students to science. The experiments she and her daughter developed were aimed at captivating young students' interest in science. She regularly visited local classrooms to implement the programs. Cooper was an admired research supervisor and successfully guided a dozen students through their Ph.D.s at Cornell.

Cooper is survived by her husband, Christopher Robert Myers, a senior research associate in the Cornell Theory Center; her daughter, Katherine Hope Myers Cooper; her parents, Charles Burleigh Cooper, emeritus professor of physics at the University of Delaware, and Hope Ferguson Cooper, both of Ithaca; her sister, Jane Douglas Cooper of Cheshire, Conn.; and her brother, Charles Burleigh Cooper III of Redwood City, Calif.

A memorial gathering will be held in September, at a time and place to be announced. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the American Cancer Society or to the Barbara Hope Cooper Memorial Fund, c/o the Department of Physics, Clark Hall, Cornell University.