Nathan A. Fox is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology and the Neuroscience and Cognitive Sciences Program at the University of Maryland. He received a bachelor’s degree in Political Science at Williams College and his Ph.D. in Psychology and Social Relations from Harvard University, and was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Cross-Cultural Child Development at Harvard. He is a founding member of the National Scientific Council for the Developing Child and currently co-Scientific Director of this group.

Dr. Fox has completed research on the biological bases of social and emotional behavior, developing methods for assessing brain activity in infants and young children during tasks designed to elicit a range of emotions. His major focus has been on the temperament of behavioral inhibition, which confers a risk for development of social anxiety in children. The research he has completed has identified factors that either reduce the likelihood of development of anxiety or enhance its likelihood. This work focuses mainly on cognitive processes and Dr. Fox uses both behavioral tasks and electrophysiology to assess individual differences in performance in children.

Along with fellow 2017 Ruane Award recipients Drs. Nelson and Zeanah, Dr. Fox is a Principal Investigator on the Bucharest Early Intervention Project. This longitudinal study is the first (and only) randomized clinical trial of foster care intervention for infants and young children who began life in institutions under conditions of significant psychosocial adversity. Drs. Fox, Nelson and Zeanah are also the authors of Romania’s Abandoned Children: Deprivation, Brain Development and the Struggle for Recovery (Harvard University Press, 2014).

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