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We all know the drive to CU Boulder’s campus from the south: the beautiful view of the Flatirons as we’re driving up U.S. 36. This was the exact drive that made Rachel Cox realize that Boulder would be her home for a long time.

Being a faculty member in computer science at CU Boulder, Rachel has encountered many experiences throughout her career path. However, her journey hasn’t been easy, and each experience shaped her for the next opportunity that would come her way.

Rachel grew up in a very small town in rural Pennsylvania, where even to this day, there isn’t a stop sign in sight.

She lived a very middle-class life, she said, raised by parents who were both in the education field as math and science teachers. Her parents’ careers alone were enough for her to realize that she wanted a career in education. From very early on in her life, it was clear to her that the only way she would get into college was through a scholarship. Cox took it upon herself to work hard in academics and extracurricular activities in order to pursue a scholarship - and she did! She pursued majors in math and classics at Bucknell University and shortly after got a master’s degree at Florida State University.

Following this, she has been all over the country picking up unique experiences, starting with a research and development engineering position in an applied research lab at Penn State. At this lab, she was able to contribute to a government-funded project that was presented to and went to development with a branch of the military. She said she felt proud that she was able to work on a project that had a role in helping our country. 

It was at this lab division where she encountered one of the most influential mentors in her career path. Being the head of their lab division, this mentor was a leading figure who always guided Cox toward the right direction, taught her how to manage others, and to lead by being down with her workers and lifting them up, she said. This was a piece of advice that Cox carried throughout her future roles in leadership and being an instructor. 

Feeling like she still wanted an adventure, Cox ended up changing her focus to Colorado, starting a long line of teaching positions at many different areas, such as being an adjunct instructor for various classes at both Arapahoe Community College and Front Range Community College.

Knowing that she loved Boulder, Cox applied to grad schools including Colorado State University and CU Boulder, hoping to make more connections and land more teaching positions in the area. Following this, she received a master’s in applied math at CU Boulder and started teaching classes in the applied math department, including pre-calculus, calculus 1, and calculus 2. In 2018, she finally made it to the computer science field and went on to teach Discrete, Data Science, Intro to AI, and Algorithms. 

Although computer science can be a very male-dominated field, and there were many occasions when she was the only female in the room, she said she was lucky to have classmates and colleagues along the way who never made her feel unwelcome or isolated.

Cox said she was guided through most of her adult life by a quote: “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

If she had one piece of advice for her younger self, she added, it would be to try and be more relaxed about certain things, as opportunities lend themselves. 

“It’s easy to get stressed out when the next steps of your life are uncertain,” she said. “Transitions are hard, but you just have to relax, and it will all take shape when it’s supposed to. Perfection is not required to have a successful life.”

Moving forward, Cox has high hopes for the CU Engineering program and said she is very impressed with the way the program is going currently. She has the chance to work with stellar students who are always a step ahead and believes we have a good network within the college as well as the tech community. 

With the amount of funding we receive for different areas of research, Cox said she sees CU Boulder becoming a powerhouse for research, engineering, and more in the future.

About the Author

I am currently a junior pursuing a bachelor's degree in computer science and spend a lot of my time delving into creative projects/fields and being a leader for various student organizations here at CU, such as CU Women in Computing, CU Engineering Council, and HackCU. Throughout the past couple of years, I have had to take many challenging classes, and I have been fortunate to have Professor Rachel Cox teach three of the hardest courses I have ever taken. I have always been inspired by her strong background in research, well-organized teaching structure, and relationships she formed with her staff and students. Therefore, I have chosen to dive deep into her story and how she became an integral part of the women faculty in computer science.