Cooke has diverse interests in integrative biology, conservation science, and natural resource management. His work spans the natural and social sciences with a particular focus on developing solutions to problems facing fish and other aquatic organisms. Specific projects of late have focused o...
Cooke has diverse interests in integrative biology, conservation science, and natural resource management. His work spans the natural and social sciences with a particular focus on developing solutions to problems facing fish and other aquatic organisms. Specific projects of late have focused on issues and topics such as fish migration, fish-hydropower interactions, the sustainability of recreational fisheries, aquatic habitat restoration, the movement ecology of fish, the ecology of stress in wild fish, and winter biology. He has also been deeply involved with defining the new discipline of “conservation physiology” – a field dedicated to understanding the mechanisms underlying conservation problems. He has much experience working with practitioners, policy makers and stakeholders to co-create usable knowledge. Cooke founded the Canadian Centre for Evidence-Based Conservation and is working with diverse partners to build capacity for evidence synthesis in his various roles in the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence. He has published more than 700 peer reviewed papers on topics such as conservation science, knowledge mobilization and enabling interdisciplinarity but recognizes that bi-directional knowledge exchange with potential knowledge users is even more rewarding. Cooke is a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and is Secretary of the College of the Royal Society of Canada.