Saths Cooper is a psychologist who has played a variety of public roles from the age of 16, being imprisoned in Robben Island, mostly in the same cell-block as Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and other apartheid prisons for 9 years. The recipient of numerous awards (e.g., the inaugural IUPsyS Achievement Against the Odds Award in 2012, the International Association of Applied Psychology Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to the Advancement of Applied Psychology in 2014 and the American Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Contributions to the International Advancement of Psychology in 2014), he is a Fellow of the Psychological Society of South Africa and the National Academy of Psychology - India, and Honorary Fellow of the British & Irish Psychological Societies. President of the International Union of Psychological Science and the Pan-African Psychology Union, and Vice President of the International Social Science Council, Cooper is Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria and Honorary Professor at the University of Limpopo.