Fox moved to work at the
University of Essex, where she was made a Professor in 2000. In 2007, she was elected Head of the Department of Psychology and the Centre for Brain Science. In 2013, Fox joined the
University of Oxford. Here she directs the Oxford Centre for Emotions & Affective Neuroscience (OCEAN). She was awarded a
European Research Council Advanced Investigator Award to study emotional vulnerability, resilience and optimism. In particular, she evaluates why people respond differently to adversity and success. She leads the Cog-BIAS project that looks at what makes particular people vulnerable to developing anxiety disorders. This involves evaluating at how biases in information processing (for example in attention, interpretation) impact emotions. She showed that using Attention Bias Modification (ABM) can be used to modify biased attention to develop emotional resilience. The origins of this bias modification are in the variation of
serotonin transporter polymorphism. Fox identified that the people who inherit two copies of the
long variant of the
5-HTTLPR gene avoid negative imagery. She concluded that these people were ready to seek out positive events – an optimistic streak, whilst people with the
short variant of the
5-HTTLPR gene are more prone to negative experiences and anxiety. In October 2019, Fox was appointed the
United Kingdom Research and Innovation (
UKRI) Mental Health Networks Impact and Engagement Coordinator. In this capacity she will facilitate engagement between the
UKRI's mental health networks. She has personally been awarded £450,000 funding to support these activities. As part of her public engagement around psychology, Fox taught Michael Mosley to be more optimistic. During the experiment, Fox scanned Mosley's brain, and attributed his pessimism to the activity in his right front cortex. She has discussed the power of positivity and mental health with
Claudia Hammond.
Selected publications Her publications include: • • • == References ==