His work on multipath and other propagation problems has been fundamental to the development of mobile phone technology.
Cox was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 1994 for research and leadership in wireless personal communications technologies and systems.
In 1979, Donald Cox was elevated to IEEE fellow for contributions to the understanding of radio propagation effects in mobile telephone and satellite communications systems.
After 3 years working in communications system design at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, he attended Stanford University, where he received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 1968.
He became part of Bellcore (now Telcordia Technologies) when it was formed in 1984, and he stayed there until 1993, when he left to take an academic position at Stanford.