Associate Professor Molly M. Fox
Molly Fox is a biological anthropologist exploring how women’s social, cultural, and physical environments influence their own biological development as well as their children.
She is the founder and principal investigator of the UCLA Biological Anthropology of Motherhood Lab. By studying the human female life cycle, she addresses questions related to women’s health and intergenerational processes between grandmothers, mothers, and infants. Key topics in her research include (a) transgenerational effects of socio-cultural stressors experienced by women in ethnic minority communities; (b) how women’s reproductive life histories affect risk of Alzheimer’s disease; and (c) how social support from family confers health benefits to pregnant women.
Dr. Fox received her BA from Yale University and her PhD from University of Cambridge as a Gates Cambridge Scholar in Gonville & Caius college before joining the faculty at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). As a Clare Hall Visiting Fellow and Visiting Scholar of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, she will be working on projects centred around a topic that touches us all—how humans evolved to care for one another, especially when it comes to childcare and elder care, and how these ancient practices shape our health today.
At Clare Hall, Dr. Fox is accompanied by her husband, Dr. Stanislav Minsker, Professor of Mathematics at University of Southern California (USC). Dr. Minsker studies high dimensional and robust statistics, statistical learning theory, and concentration of measure inequalities. Dr. Minsker will be a Visiting Scholar at the Cambridge Statistical Laboratory.
Select publications
- E Bridgers, MM Fox. (2024) Lonely, stressed-out moms: does the post-industrial social experience put women at risk for perinatal mood disorders? Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health. https://doi.org/10.1093/emph/eoae025
- KS Wiley, D Kwon, DA Knorr, MM Fox. (2023) Regulatory T-cell phenotypes in prenatal psychological distress. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2023.11.033
- MM Fox*, J Hahn-Holbrook*, CA Sandman, JA Marino, LM Glynn, E Poggi Davis (*equal contribution) (2023) Mothers’ Prenatal Distress Accelerates Pubertal Development in Daughters. Psychoneuroendocrinology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2023.106671
- MM Fox, DA Knorr, D Kwon, KS Wiley, MH Parrish. (2023) How prenatal cortisol levels relate to grandmother-mother relationships among a cohort of Latina women. American Journal of Human Biology
- DA Knorr, MM Fox. (2023) An evolutionary perspective on the association between grandmother-mother relationships and maternal mental health among a cohort of pregnant Latina women. Evolution and Human Behavior. 44(1): 30-38
- MM Fox. How demographics and concerns about the Trump administration relate to prenatal mental health among Latina women. (2022) Social Science and Medicine. 307, 115171
- MM Fox and KS Wiley. (2022) How a pregnant woman’s relationships with her siblings relate to her mental health: a prenatal allocare perspective. Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health. DOI: 10.1093/emph/eoab044
- KS Wiley, L Martinez, M Epeldegui, MM Fox. Regulatory B cells are associated negatively with regulatory T cells and positively with cytokines in peripheral blood of pregnant women. American Journal of Reproductive Immunology. https://doi.org/10.1111/aji.70027
- MM Fox, CA Sandman, E Poggi Davis, LM Glynn. (2015) Intra-individual consistency in endocrine profiles across successive pregnancies. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. https://doi.org/10.1210/jc.2015-2620
Further links
- Dr. Fox’s website: https://mollyfox.mystrikingly.com/
- Dr. Fox’s lab website: https://motherhoodlabucla.mystrikingly.com/
- Dr. Fox’s Alzheimer’s Life History Project: https://ucla-alh.mystrikingly.com/
- Dr. Fox’s Mothers’ Cultural Experiences Study: https://mothersculturalexperiences.mystrikingly.com/