Zachary Cooper (’27, Molecular & Cell Biology/Business Administration) has been selected as a 2026–2027 Astronaut Scholar, a $15,000 scholarship that requires university nomination. This honor is awarded to juniors and seniors pursuing degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) who exhibit motivation, imagination, and exceptional performance in their field of academics and research. Additional benefits of the Astronaut Scholarship, which was created in 1984 by the six surviving Mercury 7 astronauts to ensure the United States would maintain its leadership in science and technology, include mentorship and professional networking with astronauts, program alumni, and industry leaders.
Zachary is passionate about advancing next-generation therapeutics through oncolytic virotherapy and programmable genome editing. He conducts research in the lab of Dr. David Schaffer at UC Berkeley, adapting CRISPRi/a technologies to modulate gene expression in oncolytic vaccinia virus, and at the Arc Institute under Dr. Patrick Hsu, where he is engineering programmable bridge recombinases. Zachary aims to leverage his interdisciplinary training in molecular biology and business to translate elite discovery into universal access by spinning out innovative technologies from the lab. In the future, he hopes to pursue a Ph.D. and build a career as a founder-scientist at the intersection of academic breakthroughs and biotech entrepreneurship.