Nancy I. Cooper holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She has taught at the National University of Singapore, the University of California, and is currently affiliated with the University of Hawaii as an Adjunct Associate Professor.

She arrived in Indonesia in May 2018 to begin her six-month project under the US Fulbright Scholar Grant entitled “Forging Modern Identities through Metal and Music”. This research explores the ways in which rural people with non-agricultural occupations adapt to modern innovations without losing the most meaningful parts of their cultural heritage. Instead of following the trend of moving to cities, some practitioners in these occupations selectively adopt modern techniques that may allow them to stay in place without sacrificing their livelihoods.

The baselines for the project are the studies conducted by S. Ann Dunham in the blacksmithing village of Kajar and by Dr. Cooper on women singers with gamelan groups in the Kabupaten Gunungkidul in the 1990s. She is hosted by Universitas Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta.