Current and emeritus professors, department alumni, and colleagues are encouraged to send thoughts and memories about Prof. Don Cox, who passed away October 26, 2022. Please email your submission to Sarah Perdue (saperdue@wisc.edu).
View the department obituary
Jim Lookabaugh '81
He was a wonderful teacher. Never a dull moment when attending his lectures. And c’mon, that’s saying something. A fellow classmate of mine and I share an inside story about one such lecture, which we both treasure to this day! Happy trails, Professor Cox, and thank you.
Ron Reynolds
Don was a friend and colleague, who spread his love of life, and of physics in particular, to all those around him. I miss him.
James Sowinski, BS'77 MS'83 PhD'84
As a freshman physics major in spring 1974 I was fortunate to take Introductory Physics from Don Cox. I also ended up in his discussion section. He was informal with us and even invited us to parties at his house. I remember the exams in the evening with no time limit. Most of the problems were pretty straight forward but there was always one extra credit problem as a challenge which kept me there working on it until it was time to concede. As the second semester of the course finished, Don connected me with Kraushaar’s space physics group where I worked as a lab assistant the rest of my undergraduate career. Don provided a great start to my career in physics and introduction to a very welcoming Physics Department which was my academic and research home for 11 years.
Ed Antaramian, '81
He led my evening 207 discussion/lab. It took very little convincing for him to allow a couple of us to turn a table-top pendulum
experiment into a two-story, stairwell version. (He gave his approval with a chuckle and twinkle in his eye.) He appeared to genuinely love teaching physics to newbies.