David Cooke and his research team have been researching porphyry copper and epithermal gold deposits of the circum-Pacific region for over 30 years. They have investigated the geodynamic environments of mineralisation, intrusive history and the magmatic-hydrothermal transition, fluid compositions, ore-forming processes and genetic associations between porphyry and epithermal systems. Over the past 14 years, David and his team have been studying geochemical halos to porphyry and epithermal deposits, developing new exploration tools for the minerals industry. This work, sponsored through AMIRA International, led to the team being awarded the inaugural AMIRA International Award for Geoscience Research Excellence in 2012. David is an associate editor of Economic Geology, and is Director of both the TMVC ARC Industrial Transformational Research Hub, and CODES – the Centre for Ore Deposit and Earth Sciences. David received the Society of Economic Geologists’ Thayer Lindsley lecturer award in 2005, the SEG Silver Medal in 2013, and the Australian Academy of Science’s Haddon Forrester King Medal in 2018.