Cox began his research in evolutionary ecology as a student of John L. Harper at the University of Wales in Bangor by studying dioecy in plants. At Harvard University where he served for four years as Teaching Fellow for E. O. Wilson, he studied how vertebrate pollination influenced breeding system evolution in tropical lianas.
Cox began his evolutionary ecology research with John L. Harper at the University of Wales in Bangor by studying dioecy in plants. At Harvard University, where he worked as a Teaching Fellow for E. O. Wilson for four years, he investigated how vertebrate pollination affected breeding system evolution in tropical lianas.