Prof. Monica Cox Named Inaugural Director of the College of Engineering Leadership Minor

Monica Cox
The Leadership Minor will be an elective program coupling leadership theory with practice, leading to a certificate that is recorded on a student's transcript. Guided by a faculty mentor, students will create a personal leadership development plan, take courses on leadership concepts, peer mentor younger students, and create a portfolio of their leadership experiences.

The concept and early planning for the minor grew out of the College of Engineering strategic plan roadmapping team led by Jean Paul Allain and Beth Holloway. The design of the minor was fleshed out by the strategic plan "first action" team led by Beth Holloway and Dr. Inez Hua. The Leadership Minor was endorsed by the CoE Undergraduate Chairs in January 2012. 

In addition to her position as Associate Professor in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue, Dr. Cox is Interim Director of Indiana Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation, Director of the Pedagogical Evaluation Laboratory, and a Visiting Professor at the Universidad de las Americas, Puebla, Mexico (UDLAP). She uses mixed methodologies to explore significant research questions in undergraduate and graduate engineering education, to integrate concepts from higher education and learning science into engineering education, and to develop and disseminate reliable and valid assessment tools for use across the engineering education continuum.

Her honors include being selected as a National Academy of Engineering Center for the Advancement of Scholarship in Engineering Education New Faculty Fellow; an Emerging Scholar by Diverse: Issues in Higher Education magazine; a participant in the inaugural National Academy of Engineering's Frontiers in Engineering Education conference; a 2008 NSF Faculty Early Career (CAREER) Award Recipient; and a 2008 recipient of a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers.

Dr. Cox obtained a B.S. in mathematics from Spelman College, an M.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Alabama, and a Ph.D. in Leadership and Policy Studies from Peabody College at Vanderbilt University. She brings her own strong leadership capabilities to her new position, as well as her formal education and her research on the development of engineering students' leadership, change, and synthesis skills.