Cox, Dan

IMSD Undergraduate Initiatives Director
Associate Professor of Neuroscience

Dan Cox was born in Tampa, FL and grew up in the Orlando area. He graduated with Honors from Wake Forest University where he conducted undergraduate research as the William L. Wyatt Scholar in Biology with Drs. Nina S. Allen and Gloria K. Muday at both Wake Forest and the Marine Biological Laboratory. During this time, he developed a passion for cell biology and cellular imaging which he carried forward into his doctoral studies at Duke University under the direction of Dr. Haifan Lin. Dr. Cox completed his PhD in 1999 in which he identified and characterized members of the piwi gene family in regulating asymmetric stem cell division. As a Systems Neuroscientist, Dr. Cox’s research interests revolve around developmental neurogenetics, neurogenomics, molecular neuroanatomy, computational neuroscience, and behavioral neurobiology. We are particularly interested in elucidating the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the specification and modulation of neural connectivity with an emphasis on the control of dendrite development and the functional relationships between dendrite morphogenesis and behavior.