Dr U. Vivienne Cassie Cooper was a foundation member of ASPAB, as well as of the International Phycological Society (and on the organising committee of the first IPC), the International Society of Diatomists, and the Asian Pacific Phycological Association. Vivienne has worked with determination and commitment on an extraordinary range of phycological research topics including macroalgal taxonomy and community ecology, diatom taxonomy, algae of thermal areas, freshwater algal ecology and distribution, and marine phytoplankton including toxic algae. Vivienne’s working life has included periods teaching at universities (Victoria University of Wellington, Auckland University), and research in government institutes (NZ Oceanographic Institute, Botany Division DSIR). Vivienne’s scholarship as well as her contributions to phycology have been recognised by a number of honours and distinctions including the Fowlds Memorial Prize (1949) and an AAUW International Fellowship (1960). She is an Honorary Life Member of the NZ Limnological Society (1987), an Honorary Life Member of the NZ Marine Sciences Society (1988), and in 1997 was made a Member of the NZ Order of Merit, MNZM . A profile of Vivienne’s life was published in “Lives with Science: profiles of senior New Zealand women in science” P. Martin (1993).