Crystal Marie Cooper

Crystal Marie Cooper is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, Department of Psychology, and holds adjunct roles at UT Southwestern Medical Center and University of Texas Arlington’s Bioengineering department. She leads research on neuroimaging biomarkers in mental health, particularly focusing on adolescents with epilepsy and major depressive disorder (MDD). Her work integrates electrophysiological, neuroimaging, and clinical data to predict treatment responses and identify psychiatric subtypes.

Education: PhD (2012), MS (2009), and BS (2007) in Experimental Psychology from the University of Texas at Arlington. Her postdoctoral training at UT Southwestern Medical Center focused on translational psychiatry research.

Research Interests: Neuroimaging (fMRI, MEG, EEG), emotion processing, psychiatric comorbidities in epilepsy, antidepressant treatment response prediction, and biomarker discovery for mood disorders. Her recent studies leverage magnetoencephalography to map spatiotemporal neural dynamics in adolescents with epilepsy and explore reward system dysfunction in depression.

Grants: Active proposals include investigations into the brain-heart connection in PTSD, emotion processing in epilepsy patients, and cognitive biomarkers of well-being in youth. Funded projects include a $100k grant from the Jordan Elizabeth Harris Foundation studying neuroimaging biomarkers in epilepsy.

Awards: Recognized as a Rising Star by the Society for Biological Psychiatry (2019), New Investigator Award from the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology (2015), and multiple top poster awards for translational research.

Advising: Supervises graduate students in clinical psychology and neuroscience, with a focus on interdisciplinary approaches combining neuroscience and mental health research. Currently advising Kathryn King (PhD candidate) on multi-modal neuroimaging studies of epilepsy patients.

Labs/Teams: Principal Investigator at Cook Children’s Healthcare Systems’ Neuroscience Research department. Collaborates with the EMBARC consortium for biomarker discovery in depression treatment.