Demystifying the Engineering PhD

Monica F. Cox, Ph.D., grew up an only child in a rural southeast Alabama community, where she was raised by her educator parents to persist in the face of personal and professional adversity. She earned degrees in mathematics (Spelman College), industrial engineering (University of Alabama), and leadership and policy studies (Vanderbilt University) debt free and interned at NASA as she pursued her degrees. As a child, she dreamed of traveling to the places she read about, using science to make life better, and entering politics to change the world. Her inquisitive nature contributes to her passion for educating others and sharing what she has learned via her experiences.
She is a Professor and Inaugural Chair of the Department of Engineering Education at The Ohio State University. She is also the Director of the International Institute of Engineering Education Assessment (i2e2a) and the CEO of STEMinent LLC, a company that houses educational assessment, professional development, and media offerings. In 2011, she became the first African American female to earn tenure in the College of Engineering at Purdue University. Her research focuses on the use of mixed methodologies to explore significant research questions in undergraduate, graduate, and professional engineering education; to explore issues of intersectionality among women, particularly Women of Color (WOC) in engineering; and to develop, disseminate, and commercialize reliable and valid assessment tools for use in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. Dr. Cox has led and collaborated on multidisciplinary projects totaling approximately $16 million, and she has authored over 130 publications.