Education
Ph.D. in Risk Analysis from MIT
SM in Operations Research from MIT
AB from Harvard
Stanford Executive Program
Areas of expertise
Risk analysis, operations research, artificial intelligence, game theory, statistics
Selected Publications
Journal Articles, Book Chapters, etc.
Cox LA Jr. (2020) Answerable and unanswerable questions in risk analysis with open-world novelty. Risk Analysis. Nov;40(S1):2144-2177. doi: 10.1111/risa.13553.
Cox LA Jr. (2020) Higher line speed in young chicken slaughter establishments does not predict increased Salmonella contamination risks. Poultry Science. (forthcoming)
Greenberg MR, Cox A, Bier V, Lambert J, Lowrie K, North W, Siegrist M, Wu F. (2020) Risk analysis: Celebrating the accomplishments and embracing ongoing challenges. Risk Analysis. Nov; 40(S1):2113-2127. doi: 10.1111/risa.13487.
Cox LA Jr, Popken DA. (2020) Should air pollution health effects assumptions be tested? Fine particulate matter and COVID-19 mortality as an example. Global Epidemiology 2020 Sep 2:100033. doi: 10.1016/j.gloepi.2020.100033.
Cox L.A. Jr. (2020) Re: “Causal effects of air pollution on mortality rate in Massachusetts.” Letter to the Editor. American Journal of Epidemiology. September, 2020
Cox LA Jr. (2020) Using Bayesian networks to clarify interpretation of exposure-response regression coefficients: blood lead-mortality association as an example. Critical Reviews in Toxicology 2020 Sep 9:1-12. doi: 10.1080/10408444.2020.1787329.
Cox LA Jr. (2020). Thinking better: Six recent books on natural, artificial, and social intelligence. Risk Analysis. 40(6):1302-19.
Cox LA Jr. (2020) Implications of nonlinearity, confounding, and interactions for estimating exposure concentration-response functions in quantitative risk analysis. Environmental Research;187:109638.
Cox LA Jr, Goodman JE, Engel AM. (2020) Chronic inflammation, adverse outcome pathways, and risk assessment: A diagrammatic exposition. Regul Toxicol Pharmacol.; 114:104663. doi:10.1016/j.yrtph.2020.104663
Cox LA Jr. (2020) Target Sites: Cardiovascular. Chapter 51 in P. Wexler et al. (Eds.) Information Resources in Toxicology: 5th Edition. Elsevier. Academic Press.
Cox LA Jr. (2020) Target Sites: Hematopoietic. Chapter 54 in P. Wexler et al. (Eds.) Information Resources in Toxicology: 5th Edition. Elsevier. Academic Press.
Cox LA Jr, Popken DA, Sun J, Liao XP, Fang LX. (2020) Quantifying human health risks from virginiamycin use in food animals in China. Risk Analysis. 40(6); 1244-1257. 10.1111/risa.13466. doi:10.1111/risa.13466
Maldonado G, Cox LA Jr. (2020). Causal reasoning in epidemiology: Philosophy and logic. Global Epidemiology. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.gloepi.2020.100020
Cox LA, Jr. (2020) Nonlinear dose-time-response functions and health-protective exposure limits for inflammation-mediated diseases. Environmental Research 182, March 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2019.109026
Cox LA, Jr. (2020) Dose-response modeling of NLRP3 inflammasome-mediated diseases: Asbestos, lung cancer, and malignant mesothelioma as examples. Critical Reviews in Toxicology. 2020 Jan 6:1-22. doi: 10.1080/10408444.2019.1692779.
Cox LA, Jr. (2020). Book Review of On Grand Strategy. Risk Analysis 40(20): 435-438.
Cox LA Jr. Ambient air pollution and mortality in 652 cities. Letter to the Editor. N Engl J Med. 2019 Nov 21;381(21):2074. doi: 10.1056/NEJMc1913285.
Cox LA.(2019) Should health risks of air pollution be studied scientifically? Global Epidemiology 1 (Nov.) 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloepi.2019.100015
Cox LA, Simon TW, Becker RA. (2019) The Predictive Analytics Toolkit (PAT): User-friendly predictive analytics for advancing new approach methodologies (NAMs). Computational Toxicology 12 (Nov 2019).
Cox LA Jr. (2019) Shapes and definitions of exposure-response curves: A comment on “A matrix for bridging the epidemiology and risk assessment gap.” Global Epidemiology. 1 (Nov.) 2019.
Cox LA. (2019) Book Review of The Model Thinker: What You Need to Know to Make Data Work for You. Risk Analysis 39(12): 2786-2789.
Cox, T. (2019). Muddling-through and deep learning for managing large-scale uncertain risks. Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, 10(2), 226-250. doi:10.1017/bca.2019.17
Cox LA Jr. (2019) Improving causal determination. Global Epidemiology. Nov. 1(1). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloepi.2019.100004
Cox T. (2019) Learning causal graph models from data. Wiley StatsRef: Statistics Reference Online. DOI: 10.1002/9781118445112.stat08149
Cox LA. (2019) Causal prediction and forecasting. Wiley StatsRef: Statistics Reference Online. DOI: 10.1002/9781118445112.stat08147
Cox LA. (2019) Causal graph models for predictive and prescriptive analytics. Wiley StatsRef: Statistics Reference Online. DOI: 10.1002/9781118445112.stat08146
Cox LA Jr. (2019) Risk analysis implications of dose-response thresholds for NLRP3 inflammasome-mediated diseases: Respirable crystalline silica and lung cancer as an example. Dose Response. https://doi.org/10.1177/1559325819836900
Cox LA Jr. (2019). Communicating more clearly about deaths caused by air pollution. Global Epidemiology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloepi.2019.100003
Cox LA. Book review: Behaving Better – Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert M. Sapolsky, Penguin Press, 2017, and 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson, Random House Canada, 2018. Risk Analysis. 2019 39(2):505-508 DOI: 10.1111/risa.13266
Cox LA Jr. Modernizing the Bradford Hill criteria for assessing causal relationships in observational data. Critical Reviews in Toxicology. 2018 Nov 15:1-31. doi: 10.1080/10408444.2018.1518404.
Cox LAT. Book Review: Ten Great Ideas About Chance by PersiDiaconis and Brian Skyrms (Princeton University Press, 2018). Risk Analysis. 2018 Nov; 38(11): 2497-2501.
Cox LAT Jr. Socioeconomic and particulate air pollution correlates of heart disease risk. Environ Res. 2018 Nov;167:386-392. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2018.07.023.
Cox LA. Effects of exposure estimation errors on estimated exposure-response relations for PM2.5. Environ Res. 2018 Jul;164:636-646. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2018.03.038.
Cox LAT Jr. Biological mechanisms of non-linear dose-response for respirable mineral fibers. Toxicol Appl Pharmacol. 2018 Jun 19. pii: S0041-008X(18)30282-5. doi: 10.1016/j.taap.2018.06.016.
Cox, LA Jr. Air pollution and mortality in the Medicare population. JAMA. 2018 May 22; 319(20):2134-2135. doi: 10.1001/jama.2018.3923. Letter to the Editor.
Cox LA Jr. RE: "Best practices for gauging evidence of causality in air pollution epidemiology". Am J Epidemiol. 2018 Mar 23. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwy034. Letter to the Editor.
Cox T. Uncertain causation, regulation, and the courts. Supreme Court Economic Review. 2016 24(1): 197-254. https://doi.org/10.1086/697315 (Published in 2018)
Cox LA Jr. Bier VM. Probabilistic Risk Analysis. Chapter 1 in VM Bier (Ed), Risk in Extreme Environments: Preparing, Avoiding,Mitigating, Managing. 2018.
Cox LA Jr. Quantifying and Reducing Uncertainty about Causality in Public Health and Safety Risk Analysis. In Ghenam R et al. (Eds), Springer Handbook of Uncertainty Quantification. 2017.
Becker RA et al. How well can carcinogenicity be predicted by high throughput “characteristics of carcinogens” mechanistic data? Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology 90C (2017) pp. 185-196
Cox LA, Liu X, Shi L, Zu K, Goodman J. Applying nonparametric methods to analyses of short-term fine particulate matter exposure and hospital admissions for cardiovascular diseases among older adults. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2017, 14(9), 1051; doi:10.3390/ijerph14091051
Cox LA, Schnatter AR, Boogaard PJ, Banton M, Ketelslegers HB. Non-parametric estimation of low-concentration benzene metabolism. Chemo-BiologicalInteractions. Sep. 2017.
Cox T. Review of Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics by Richard Thaler. Risk Analysis. 2017 Sep; 37(9): 1796-1798.
Cox LA Jr. Do causal concentration-response functions exist? A critical review of associational and causal relations between fine particulate matter and mortality. Critical Reviews in Toxicology. 2017 Aug;47(7):603-631.
Dudley S. et al. Consumer’s guide to regulatory impact analysis: ten tips for being an informed policymaker. Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis. 2017 Jul.
Cox T. Review of Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths. Risk Analysis. 2017 June; 37(6): 1201-1207.
Cox LA Jr. Socioeconomic and air pollution correlates of adult asthma, heart attack,
and stroke risks in the United States, 2010–2013. Environmental Research. 2017 May;155:92-107.
Cox T. Review of Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner. (2015). New York: Broadway Books. Risk Analysis. 2017 Feb;37(2): 396-397.
Cox LA Jr. Concentration-response associations used to estimate public health benefits of less pollution are not valid causal predictive models. Letter to the Editor. Ann Am Thorac Soc. 2016 Dec;13(12):2280-2281.
Cox LA Jr. How accurately and consistently do laboratories measure workplace concentrations of respirable crystalline silica? Regul Toxicol Pharmacol. 2016 Nov;81:268-274.
Cox JA Jr., Cox ED. (2016) Intergenerational Justice in Protective and Resilience Investments with Uncertain Future Preferences and Resources. Chapter 12 in P. Gardoni, C. Murphy, and A. Rowell (Eds). Risk Analysis of Natural Hazards: Interdisciplinary Challenges and Integrated Solutions. Springer. New York, New York.
Lee RJ, Van Orden DR, Cox LA Jr., Arlauckas S, Kautz RJ. Impact of muffle furnace preparation on the results of crystalline silica analysis. Regul Toxicol Pharmacol. 2016 Oct; 80:164-72.
Cox LA Jr.Rethinking the meaning of concentration–response functions and the estimated burden of adverse health effects attributed to exposure concentrations. Risk Analysis.2016 Sep;36(9):1770-1779
Cox LA Jr. Re: “Unconventional natural gas development and birth outcomes in Pennsylvania, USA.” Letter to the Editor. Epidemiology. 2016 Nov;27(6):e37.
Cox LA, Popken DA, Kaplan AM, Plunkett LM, Becker RA. How well can in vitro data predict in vivo effects of chemicals? Rodent carcinogenicity as a case study. Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology. 2016 Jun;77:54-64.
Cox LA, Jr. and Goodman JE. Re: “Estimating causal associations of fine particles with daily deaths in Boston.” Letter to the Editor. American Journal of Epidemiology. 2016 Mar 15;183(6):593.
Aven A, Cox LA Jr. National and global risk studies: How can the field of risk analyusis contribute? Risk Analysis. 2016Feb; 36(2): 186-190.
Cox LA Jr. Overcoming learning-aversion in evaluating and managing uncertain risks. Risk Analysis. 2015 Oct; 35(10)
Popken DA, Cox LA Jr. Quantifying human health risks caused by Toxoplasmosis from open system production of swine. Human and Ecological Risk Assessment. 2015 Oct 3; 21(7): 1717-1735
Cox LA Jr, Van Orden DR, Lee RJ, Arlauckas SM, Kautz RA, Warzel AL, Bailey KF, Ranpuria AK. How reliable are crystalline silica dust concentration measurements? Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology 2015 Jul 6;73(1):126-136.
Cox LA Jr. 2015. Food microbial safety and animal antibiotics. Chapter 15 in Chen C-Y, Yan X, Jackson CR (Eds). Antimicrobial Resistance and Food Safety: Methods and Techniques. Elsevier, New York.
Cox, LA Jr, Popken DA. Has reducing PM2.5 and ozone caused reduced mortality rates in the United States? Annals of Epidemiology. 2015 Mar;25(3):162-73.
Weill D, Chatfield E, Cox A Jr, Gamble J, Gibbs G, Wylie A. Letter to JOEH Editor - In reference to Hwang at al. "The Relationship Between Various Exposure Metrics for Elongate Mineral Particles (EMP) in the Taconite Mining and Processing Industry" JOEH,11:613-624, 2014.J Occup Environ Hyg. 2015 Jan 23:0.
Cox LA Jr, Popken DA. Quantitative assessment of human MRSA risks from swine.Risk Analysis. 2014 Sep;34(9):1639-50
Cox LA, Popken D, Marty MS, Rowlands JC, Patlewicz G, Goyak KO, Becker RA. Developing scientific confidence in HTS-derived prediction models: Lessons learned from an endocrine case study.Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology. 2014 Aug; 69(3):443-50.(Winner, “Best Published Papers in 2014 Demonstrating an Application of Risk Assessment: Top Five Papers” award, Society of Toxicology, Risk Assessment Specialty Section, March, 2015)
Paté-Cornell E, Cox LA Jr. Improving risk management: from lame excuses to principled practice.Risk Analysis. 2014 Jul;34(7):1228-39.
Cox, LA Jr. Caveats for causal interpretations of linear regression coefficients for fine particulate (PM2.5) air pollution health effects. Risk Analysis. 2013 Dec;33(12):2111-25.
Cox LA Jr. Improving causal inference in risk analysis. Risk Analysis. 2013 Oct;33(10): 1762-71.
Cox LA Jr. Decision and risk psychology: Seven recent books. Risk Analysis. 2013 Sep; 33(9): 1749-57.
Linkov I, Wood MD, Ditmer R, Cox A, Ross R. Collective risk management: insights and opportunities for DoD decision-makers. Environment Systems and Decisions. 2013 Sep; 33(3): 335-340.
Cox LA Jr. Popken DA, Ricci PF. Warmer is healthier: Effects on mortality rates of changes in average fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations and temperatures in 100 U.S. cities. Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology. 2013 Aug;66(3):336-46
Alderson D, Brown G, Carlyle M, Cox LA Jr. Sometimes there is no “most-vital” arc: Assessing and improving the operational resilience of systems. Military Operations Research. 2013 18(1):21-37
Cox LA Jr., Popken DA, Berman W. Causal vs. spurious spatial exposure-response associations in health risk analysis. Critical Reviews in Toxicology 2013. Jan; 43(S1):26-38
Berman W, Cox LA, Popken DA. A cautionary tale: The characteristics of two-dimensional distributions and their effects on epidemiological studies employing an ecological design. Critical Reviews in Toxicology 2013. Jan; 43(S1):1-25
Berman W, Cox LA, Popken DA. Resisting the urge to act on random patterns: A reply to Schenker et al. Critical Reviews in Toxicology 2013 Aug; 43(7): 609-10
Cox LA Jr. Community resilience and decision theory challenges for catastrophic events. Risk Analysis. 2012 Nov;32(11):1919-34.
Cox LA Jr. Confronting deep uncertainties in risk analysis.RiskAnalysis 2012 Oct;32(10):1607-29.
Cox LA Jr. Evaluating and improving risk formulas for allocating limited budgets to expensive risk-reduction opportunities. Risk Analysis. 2012 Jul;32(7):1244-52.
Cox LA Jr. Book Review. Poverty and Risk: A Review of Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty by Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Durflo. Risk Analysis. 2012 June;32(6):1104-1108
Greenberg M, Haas C, Cox LA Jr, Lowrie K, McComas K, North W. Ten most important accomplishments in risk analysis, 1980-2010.Risk Analysis 2012 May;32(5):771-81.
Cox LA Jr. Reassessing the human health benefits from cleaner air. Risk Analysis 2012 May;32(5):816-29
Cox LA Jr. Miscommunicating risk, uncertainty, and causation: Fine particulate air pollution and mortality risk as an example. Risk Analysis 2012 May;32(5):765-7.
Cox LA Jr. Why frequency is not well defined for engineering systems with nonexponential failure times. Risk Analysis 2012. Mar;32(3):368-72.
Cox LA Jr. Why income inequality indexes do not apply to health risks.Risk Analysis 2012. Feb; 32(2): 192-196
Cox LA Jr. Dose-response thresholds for progressive diseases. Dose-Response. 2012;10(2):233-50.
Cox LA Jr. Clarifying types of uncertainty: When are models accurate, and uncertainties small? Risk Analysis. 2011 Oct;31(10):1530-3.
Cox LA Jr. An exposure-response threshold for lung diseases and lung cancer caused by crystalline silica. Risk Analysis. 2011 Oct;31(10):1543-60.
Cox LA Jr. Foundations of decision theory. Wiley Encyclopedia of Operations Research and Management Science. 2011 http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470400633.html
Cox LA Jr. Managing R&D and risky projects. Wiley Encyclopedia of Operations Research and Management Science. 2011
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-397132.html
Cox LA Jr., WA Huber. Why risk is not variance. Wiley Encyclopedia of Operations Research and Management Science.2011
Mathers J, Flick S, Cox LA Jr. Longer-duration uses of tetracyclines and penicillins in U.S. food-producing animals: Indications and microbiologic effects. Environment International. 2011 Jul;37(5):991-1004
Cox LA Jr. A causal model of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) risk.
Risk Analysis.2011 Best Paper Award, Society for Risk Analysis) http://www.sra.org/journal_best_paper_awards.php
Cox LA Jr. Regression versus causation, revisited.RiskAnalysis. 2010 April; 30(4):535-540.
Cox LA Jr., Popken DA. Assessing potential human health hazards and benefits from subtherapeuticantibiotics in the United States: Tetracyclines as a case study. Risk Analysis. 2010 March; 30(3):432-455.
Cox T. More general conditions under which mean-variance decision making is unjustified. Risk Analysis. 2010 March; 30(3):329.
Books
Cox LA Jr. Quantitative Risk Analysis of Air Pollution Health Effects. Springer, 2021.
Cox LA Jr., Popken DA, Sun RX. Causal Analytics for Applied Risk Analysis. Springer, 2018. (Reviewed at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/risa.13295)
Cox LA Jr. (Ed.) Breakthroughs in Decision and Risk Analysis. Wiley, 2015.
(Reviewed at: https://sm.asisonline.org/Pages/Book-Review--Breakthroughs-in-Decision-Science-and-Risk-Analysis.aspx)
Cox, LA Jr. Improving Risk Analysis. Springer. New York. 2013.
(Reviewed at: https://people.maths.ox.ac.uk/trefethen/wegert_review_SIREVDec13.pdf)
Cox, LA Jr. Risk Analysis of Complex and Uncertain Systems. Springer. New York. 2009. (Reviewed at http://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/pdf/10.1287/inte.1100.0506.)
Cox, LA Jr. Quantitative Health Risk Analysis Methods: Modeling the Human Health Impacts of Antibiotics Used in Food Animals. Springer. New York. 2006.
Cox, LA Jr. Risk Analysis: Foundations, Models and Methods. Springer. New York. 2001. International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, 45.
Cox, LA Jr. and Ricci PF (eds), New Risks: Issues and Management. Plenum Press, 1990.
Murray, C.A., and LA Cox, Jr., Beyond Probation: Juvenile Corrections and the Chronic Delinquent. Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, CA, 1979.
Encyclopedias
Wiley Encyclopedia of Operations Research and Management Science. 2011. Area Editor for Decision Analysis, Risk Analysis, and Game Theory sections.
Wiley Encyclopedia of Quantitative Risk Analysis and Assessment, 2008 Area Editor, Risk Management Section.
Awards
National Academy of Engineering
Fellow, Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS)
Fellow, Society for Risk Analysis (SRA);
Affiliations
Member, National Academy of Engineering; Visiting Scholar, George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center
Board Member, Center for Truth in Science; Editor-in-Chief, Risk Analysis: An International Journal
United States Environmental Protection Agency, member of Science Advisory Board and Chair of Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee
US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, member of Board of Scientific Counselors
National Stone, Sand, and Gravel Association, member of Science Advisory Board; NextHealth Technologies, member of Analytics Advisory Board
