Dr. Gordon C. Cooke

Dr. Cooke is a 2000 graduate of the US Military Academy. He served 6 years as a Combat Engineer Officer in the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, including a 12-month deployment to Mosul, Iraq. After leaving active duty, Dr. Cooke spent 12 years as a Research Engineer and Scientist at the US Army Armaments Research, Development & Engineering Center (ARDEC). As a researcher in the Tactical Behavior Research Lab, he led projects investigating the effects of non-lethal weapons on human targets, as well as how soldiers/users interact with weapon systems. Many of the projects in the lab involved the use of simulators as well as the creation and building of a custom simulation system for the lab.

While working at ARDEC, Gordon completed his Master's Degree as well as Certificates in Ordnance Engineering and Biomedical Engineering. He was selected for an Army Fellowship by ARDEC to complete his Doctoral work collecting empirical data and modeling the relationship between impact forces and the chance of a person falling to the ground. In 2013 Dr. Cooke became one of the inaugural faculty members for the US Army Armament Graduate School teaching classes such as Statistics, Research Design, and Interior Ballistics.

Dr. Cooke currently serves as the Director of Research for the West Point Simulation Center (WPSC). He coordinates with external partners from across the Army, DoD, and industry partners on research projects to improve the use of simulations for education and the use of modeling and simulations to study warfighting. He also assists and coordinates WPSC support for capstone projects across all departments. Dr. Cooke enjoys teaching in the classroom and currently teaches MS100 Introduction to Warfighting and DS495 Research Design. In the past, he has also taught ME493 Weapons Engineering, MS200 Fundamentals of Small Unit Tactics, and MS300 Platoon Operations.

Dr. Cooke has received multiple awards, including the US Army Research & Development Achievement Award twice (2013 & 2015), the Army AL&T Best Commentary Award (2019), the Military Operations Research Journal Award (2018), the Kurt H. Weil Award for Masters Candidate (2009), and a Best Paper Award at the 26th Army Science Conference (2008). He has presented at conferences throughout the United States and Europe, has authored more than a dozen peer-reviewed papers, and has written over 50 government technical reports.