Britain has become home for the American psychologist Cary Cooper since he arrived in 1964.

He was actually born in Hollywood in 1940 and named after Cary Grant. That is where the connection with the actor ends.

Cooper attended a university in California and crossed the Atlantic to finish his studies at Leeds University.

He became a social psychology lecturer at Southampton University but in 1972 his association with Manchester started. He was head–hunted by the late Professor Sir Roland Smith, then head of Manchester Business School, to move north.

He became Bupa professor of organisational psychology and health at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology and was in that post until 2003, when he was appointed to a similar position at Lancaster University Management School.

His efforts in the field of organisational psychology have now been recognised. In the 2001 Queen’s Birthday Honours he was made a CBE for his contribution.

Cooper has written or co–written more than 100 books on business psychology, occupational stress and the role of women in work and holds honorary doctorates at four British universities.

With a fellow professor he set up Robertson Cooper, a business psychology company, whose projects have included a stress audit for the Treasury. The two professors started the business in 2000, and by 2004 it was expected to show a profit.