Monica Cox

“I am pleased to announce that Monica Cox will be the inaugural director of the College of Engineering Leadership Minor,” Jamieson said. “Monica brings her own strong leadership capabilities to the position, as well as her formal education in leadership and policy studies, and her research on the development of engineering students' leadership, change, and synthesis skills.”

The leadership minor will be an elective program coupling leadership theory with practice, leading to a certificate. Guided by a faculty mentor, students will create personal leadership development plans, take courses on leadership concepts, mentor younger students, and create portfolios of their leadership experiences. The concept and early planning for the minor grew out of the College’s strategic plan road-mapping team led by Jean Paul Allain and Beth Holloway. The strategic plan "first action" team, led by Beth Holloway and Inez Hua, built in detail. The leadership minor was endorsed by the college’s undergraduate chairs in January. “I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of those who have been involved in the leadership minor road-mapping and first action teams,” Jamieson said.

Cox also 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). Her research is focused on using 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 New Faculty Fellow in the National Academies of Engineering Center for the Advancement of Scholarship in Engineering Education; 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 United States government on outstanding scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers.

Cox is a native of Newville, Alabama. She 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.