Dr. Joseph Hooper
Vice Provost for Academic Affairs (Interim)
 

Dr. Joseph (Joe) Hooper is a Professor of Physics and interim Vice Provost for Academic Affairs. His research examines explosives and weapons effects, with a particular focus on utilizing metal combustion to augment lethality. He earned his B.S. from Georgia Tech in 2002 and his PhD in Physics from Tulane University in 2006. Upon graduation he took a Naval Research Lab Fellowship under Dr. Frank Zerilli studying the equation of state of explosives, followed by five years as a Research Physicist at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Indian Head. 

He joined the NPS Physics Department as an Assistant Professor in 2011, developing new coursework on terminal ballistics, explosives, and shock physics. He served as Associate Chair for Research in the department from 2015-2021, and as Chair from 2021-2022. As Chair and interim Vice Provost, Prof. Hooper has been working to transform the academic offerings and organizational structure of the university to better serve the Navy and other stakeholders. 

Prof. Hooper’s research group pursues both experimental and computational efforts, ranging from lab scale fabrication of reactive materials, computational modeling, and large-scale explosive testing. His labs at NPS include a range of gas guns, Hopkinson bars, and materials science equipment. Recent work has focused on fragmentation and combustion of reactive materials, which augment the lethality of traditional warheads via incendiary and overpressure effects. He has published over 65 journal papers and reviewed proceedings, and has supervised over 60 NPS thesis students. Prof. Hooper is the host for the Ordnance and Ballistics Technical Working Group, the largest classified gathering for these topics representing industry, government, and academia.