Tim D. Cope

Tim D. Cope, assistant professor of geosciences at DePauw, teaches courses on Geographic Information Systems (GIS), sedimentology and stratigraphy, field geological methods, and a number of other topical and survey courses. His research focuses on the erosional record of modern and ancient mountain belts in eastern Asia, specifically northeastern China and the eastern Tibetan plateau. Since coming to DePauw in 2003, he has led students on course-related field trips to Utah, California and New Zealand, as well as research expeditions to northeast China and Tibet.

Cope graduated magna cum laude from Sonoma State University in 1998 and received a Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2003. Although he conducted his dissertation research in northeastern China, while at Stanford he also participated in field research in the Patagonian Andes of Chile and Argentina, northern coastal Peru, and both islands of New Zealand. At DePauw he has continued his research in northeast China and Tibet, and DePauw students have accompanied him on field expeditions to China in 2004, 2006 and 2007.

His publications have appeared in Geology, Basin Research, International Geology Review, Tectonophysics, and Special Publications of the Geological Society of London. He has presented his research at conferences of the Geological Society of America, American Association of Petroleum Geologists, and International Geological Congress. In 2007 he was appointed vice chair of the International Conference on Non-marine Basin Systems, held in Beijing.

Cope worked as an intern for Anadarko Petroleum in 1999, and he maintains close ties to industry researchers in the U.S. and China. In addition, he has working relationships with Chinese researchers at a variety of academic institutions. He is currently working on collaborative research with colleagues at China University of Geosciences, PetroChina, and the Institute for Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing.