Carolyn Cooper, the grass-roots professor

Professor Carolyn Cooper has emerged as The University of the West Indies' leading scholar of grass-roots culture.

She has taken reggae scholarship global and is the leading female scholar of Caribbean culture.

When reggae is heard, Professor Cooper's name is often associated with its literary and performance aspects.

Cooper, like the late pollster Carl Stone and Professor Rex Nettleford, a former vice-chancellor of The UWI, is a public intellectual and a public figure whose writings, actions, and pronouncements erode the distinction between academia and the wider society.

She has used her newspaper columns, her blog, and radio and television talk shows to address a host of contemporary concerns regarding language, the politics of race, gender, urban planning, sexuality, and other matters.