Dr. Sue Cooke earned a B.S. in Marine and Freshwater Biology from UNH, Durham, and an M.A. in Marine Ecology from the Boston University Marine Program in Woods Hole. She then returned to UNH Durham, where she earned her doctorate in Zoology. Her doctoral work focused on the behavior and physiology of the American Lobster. Specifically, she studied the effects of temperature on their physiology and movement patterns with the goal of increasing our understanding of the factors that influence the seasonal movements of lobster populations into and out of the Great Bay Estuary. After receiving her doctorate, Dr. Cooke worked for seven years at Rivier College, first as an adjunct then as an assistant professor and finally as an associate professor in their Biology Department, where she taught numerous introductory and advanced biology courses and served as an advisor on student projects related to invertebrate behavior and neurobiology. Since leaving Rivier in 2010 to start a family, Dr. Cooke has worked as an adjunct faculty and sabbatical replacement faculty at many local colleges, including St. Joseph’s School of Nursing, Southern New Hampshire University, New England College, Manchester Community College, Northern Vermont University and UNH Manchester.
In the spring of 2018, she received the Adjunct Excellence in Teaching Award at UNH Manchester and was subsequently hired as a full-time lecturer of Biology that fall. She enjoys a broad variety of biology courses, both face-to-face as well as online, including Human Anatomy & Physiology, Contemporary Health Issues, Ecology lab, Principals of Biology and Our Changing Planet. Although she doesn’t consider herself a microbiologist, recently she was trained in a new course curriculum to engage students in the search for novel antibiotic compounds from soil bacteria and will be introducing the Small Microbial World course at UNH Manchester in Spring 2019. She is passionate about science education and loves working with both majors and non-majors to increase science literacy. Dr. Cooke is an avid environmentalist and loves working with students to raise awareness of the many challenges facing our planet.
