Rónadh Cox

Cox is from Ireland.[1] She says she became interested in geology as a teenager, because her geography teacher "delighted in the natural world,".[2] She attended University College Dublin for her undergraduate degree, where she majored in geology. After earning her bachelor's degree, Cox moved to BP, where she worked as a geological assistant. She moved to the United States for her graduate research, joining Stanford University as a doctoral student. After earning her doctorate, Cox was appointed to the Rand Afrikaans University as a postdoctoral researcher. She spent two years in South Africa before returning to North America.[2]

Cox joined the faculty at Williams College in 1996, and was eventually promoted to Edward Brust Professor of Geology and Mineralogy. In 2019 she was concurrently appointed a Visiting Professor in the School of Earth Sciences at UCD.[3]

Cox's research considers how storm waves move boulders.[2] She has studied the impact of strong storms (some equivalent to category 3 hurricanes) on Ireland's west coast, with focus on the Aran Islands.[4] In particular, she showed that 2013-14 Atlantic winter storms in Europe moved numerous hundred-tonne boulders, so-called 'megagravel' the largest ever dislocated by the waves of storms.[5][6][7] Her team also demonstrated formation of new boulders quarried from bedrock by wave action, well above sea level.[2] In 2020, she was awarded a new grant from the National Science Foundation to study the dynamic evolution of boulder beaches.[8]

From 2012 to 2016, Cox served as editor of the journal Geology, and went on to serve on the editorial board.[9]

• 2013 Elected Fellow of the Geological Society of America[10]
• 2020 Appointed Fellow of Future Earth Coasts[11]
• 2020 EU Atlantic Strategy Atlantic Project Award[12]
• 2020 Distinguished Service Award of the Geological Society of America[13]
• 2021 Elected to the Royal Irish Academy[14]
• 2022 Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science[15]

• Cox, Rónadh; Lowe, Donald R.; Cullers, R. L. (1 July 1995). "The influence of sediment recycling and basement composition on evolution of mudrock chemistry in the southwestern United States". Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. 59 (14): 2919–2940. doi:10.1016/0016-7037(95)00185-9. ISSN 0016-7037.
• Ronadh Cox (1), Donald R. Lowe (2) (1995). "A Conceptual Review of Regional-Scale Controls on the Composition of Clastic Sediment and the Co-Evolution of Continental Blocks and their Sedimentary Cover". SEPM Journal of Sedimentary Research. 65A. doi:10.1306/d4268009-2b26-11d7-8648000102c1865d. ISSN 1527-1404.
• Cox, Rónadh; Armstrong, Richard A.; Ashwal, Lewis D. (1 November 1998). "Sedimentology, geochronology and provenance of the Proterozoic Itremo Group, central Madagascar, and implications for pre-Gondwana palaeogeography". Journal of the Geological Society. 155 (6): 1009–1024. doi:10.1144/gsjgs.155.6.1009. ISSN 0016-7649. S2CID 128493704.
• Cox, Rónadh; Jahn, Kalle; Watkins, Oona; Peter, Cox (2018). "Extraordinary boulder transport by storm waves (west of Ireland, winter 2013-2014) and criteria for analysing coastal boulder deposits". Earth-Science Reviews. 177: 623–636. doi:10.1016/j.earscirev.2017.12.014.

Whilst a doctoral student in California, Cox met her husband, Mark Brandriss.[2]