Robyn Cox's Obituary
Robyn Marie Joan Masterton Cox, age 72, died in Memphis, Tennessee on October 10, 2019, after a decades-long battle with Breast Cancer. Robyn was born March 20, 1947 in Toowoomba, Queensland (Australia). In 1967, at the age of 20, she moved to the US, settling in Indiana, where she attended university.After earning her PhD in Audiology (1974, Indiana University), Robyn began a long and very successful career as a researcher, writer, and professor in what was then a relatively new field of study. She joined the faculty of The University of Memphis in 1976, where her research focused on, and eventually revolutionized, methods for hearing aid fittings. She created dozens of tests for the measurement of hearing aid effectiveness, many of which have been adopted across the field and are used daily by audiologists around the world, and authored countless papers and journal articles. She was the founder and long-time director of the U of M’s Hearing Aid Research Lab (HARL), an institution dedicated to audiological progress. In 2012 The University of Memphis named her as one of the 100 women who have contributed most to the vitality of the university since its opening, and she was the recipient of many of the field of audiology’s highest awards and honors, including the JAAA’a Editors award in 2005 and the American Auditory Society’s Carhartt Award in 2010. Upon her retirement from the university in 2016, Dr. Cox was granted the title of Professor Emeritus.Though she was an internationally renowned audiological researcher, her family, and especially her children, were the most meaningful things in the world to her. She delighted in spending time with her two daughters, Emily and Katie, and loved traveling, reading, goofing off, and just sitting around at home with her husband, Cliff and their 2 dogs.An avid gardener, Robyn spent the better part of 2 decades transforming the yard of her East-Memphis home into an oasis worthy of a magazine cover. In her “Chez Dragon Garden”, you could walk along stone pathways, or cross over a rain-runoff stream on a small wooden bridge to find a japanese-inspired swing for two in the shade of some classic Memphis Oak Trees. Around every corner was something new and beautiful: sculptures and flowers and trees laid out with loving care and an artist’s eye. In 2005 she became one of Tennessee’s Master Gardeners through a program offered by The University of Tennessee’s Department of Agriculture.Dr. Cox is survived by her husband, Clifford Walkup, her step-mother Lorna Masterton and sister Ann Masterton-Perry (both of Canberra, Australia), two daughters from previous marriages (Emily Rae Cox, of Memphis, TN, and Kathleen Masterton Studebaker, of Philadelphia, PA), and her step-son Jason Walkup of Sacramento, CA. She was preceded in death by both of her parents: Ronald and Patricia Masterton, as well as her brother Barry Masterton, all of Brisbane, Australia.The family will receive friends on Friday, October 25 from 5:00-7:00 p.m. The Memorial Service will be held on Saturday, October 26 at 1:00 p.m.All services will be held at Memorial Park.To view the memorial tribute video, please click the link below:https://www.tributeslides.com/tributes/show/C6KXP8P9J29J7ZZC
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