UT College of Engineering Dean Wayne T. Davis is pleased to announce that after a national search, Chris D. Cox, professor and associate head in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), has been named as the permanent department head, effective May 1, 2015.
Cox joined the faculty of the CEE department in 1991 as an instructor. He was promoted to assistant professor in 1992, to associate professor in 1997, and to full professor in 2007. He was named as the CEE associate department head in 2008.
Cox has also been the director of the Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment at the University of Tennessee since 2011, and he has served as an adjunct professor in the COE’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering since 2005.
Cox began his career as an industrial engineer at Smith and Loveless, Inc., in Lenexa, Kansas. He received his bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering in 1983 and his master’s degree in environmental engineering in 1984, respectively, from the University of Missouri, Columbia.
Cox was awarded his PhD in environmental engineering from Pennsylvania State University in 1993. As a doctoral student, he was awarded the Abel Wolman Fellowship of the American Water Works Association.
Cox is a registered Professional Engineer in the state of Tennessee, and has been the recipient of numerous awards during his tenure at UT, including College of Engineering Outstanding Advising Award in 2011; the Chancellor’s Teaching Award in 2009; the College of Engineering Research Fellow Award in 2008 and 2006; and the college’s Allen & Hoshall Faculty Award in 2005.
Cox’s research interests are in the area of mathematical modeling of natural and engineered environmental processes and in the modeling, analysis, and simulation of gene expression processes. His research has been published in journals such as Environmental Science & Technology, The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Nature.
Cox succeeds Gregory Reed, who has been the CEE interim department head since 2014. The college would like to express its sincere appreciation to Reed, who will retire on May 1.