Monica Cox

Cox was born in Fort Gaines, Georgia, and grew up in Shorterville, Alabama and Newville, Alabama.[1] As a child she studied a computer science class in community college.[2] She was awarded a full scholarship to attend Spelman College.[3] She graduated cum laude from Spelman College with a degree in mathematics.[4] She took part in a NASA Women in Science and Engineering program led by Etta Zuber Falconer.[4] During her undergraduate studies, Cox worked at Marshall Space Flight Center.[4] When she graduated from Spelman College she was sponsored by NASA to research in the International Space Station ground payload operations team.[4] She earned a master's degree at University of Alabama and a PhD in leadership and policy studies from Peabody College at Vanderbilt University.[5][6]

In 2011 Cox became the first African-American woman to earn tenure in the College of Engineering at Purdue University.[5] She was invited to join Michelle Obama at the White House to serve on a panel on workplace flexibility.[5] At Purdue University she became Director of the International Institute of Engineering Education Assessment.[1] She established STEMinent LLC in 2013, a platform that permits consistent and unbiased faculty performance assessment.[7][8] Whilst at Purdue University she won several awards, including the Faculty Award of Excellent for Leadership, Black Graduate Student Association Engagement Award and a National Science Foundation Career Award.[9]

Cox was named as the Chair of the Department of Engineering Education at Ohio State University in 2015.[5] She is the first African-American woman to be a Full Professor in the College of Engineering at Ohio State University.[10] She serves as Principal Investigator of a $1.4 million National Science Foundation grant for her project "Why We Persist: An Intersectional Study to Characterize and Examine the Experiences of Women Tenure-Track Faculty in Engineering".[11][12] The project will use existing databases for institutional analysis, develop a national survey and conduct interviews with women of colour.[13] She published Excellence: Why Being Average is Never an Option in 2018.[14][15]

She won the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2008.[16][17] Her research explores the participation of women of color in engineering and develops assessment tools for use across engineering education.[18] She was also recognized by Mathematically Gifted & Black as a Black History Month 2018 Honoree.[2]

• Cox, Monica. Demystifying the Engineering PhD. Elsevier Science & Technology, Saint Louis, 2019, doi:10.1016/C2014-0-00153-0.
• Besterfield-Sacre, Mary, et al. "Changing Engineering Education: Views of U.S. Faculty, Chairs, and Deans." Journal of Engineering Education (Washington, D.C.), vol. 103, no. 2, 2014, pp. 193-219
• Main, Joyce B., et al. "Trends in the Underrepresentation of Women of Color Faculty in Engineering (2005–2018)." Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 2022.