Dr. Christine Copper

Faculty Athletics Representative and Professor, United States Naval Academy

A national leader, Dr. Christine Copper was the first Faculty Athletics Representative (FAR) on the NCAA Division I Board of Directors and has also been the FAR representative to the Division I National Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. She co-chaired the NCAA working group on Values-Based Revenue Distribution that brought historic change to the NCAA’s financial distribution model by including academic incentives for the first time ever.

Dr. Copper serves on the Patriot League Policy Committee and is an active participant in the governance of the American Athletic Conference. In her time as the FAR at the United States Naval Academy (USNA), she has been instrumental in making improvements to the areas of institutional control of athletics and student-athlete well-being on both her campus and at the conference and national levels. Dr. Copper is one of the founders of the USNA Team Captains’ Leadership Program and is a partner in Athletics Leadership Consulting.

Dr. Copper was a three-time All-American collegiate tennis player and a member of two national championship teams at the University of Mary Washington, where she earned a B.S. degree in chemistry.  She also has 13 years of college club tennis coaching experience at USNA.  She earned a Ph.D. degree in analytical chemistry from the University of Tennessee in 1995.  She has been on the faculty of the Naval Academy since 1995 and remains active in undergraduate teaching and research.  Dr. Copper has been awarded the USNA Class of 1951 Civilian Faculty Teaching Excellence Award and the USNA Class of 1958 Admiral Charles R. Larson Ethical Leadership Excellence Award.  She continues to produce peer-reviewed publications in the area of chemical separations, many of which result from her work with undergraduates at the Naval Academy.