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Early Life
Renee Claire Fox was born on February 15th, 1928 in New York City to parents Fred Fox and Henrietta and has two younger siblings, a brother, Howard, and a sister, Rosa. She is of East European Jewish decent. Her father was the founder of P.F. Fox & Co. Investment Securities. Fox was raised in the city and attended elementary school at P.S 9 with her siblings. She graduated from 8th grade at the age of twelve and went to Julia Richman, an all-girls public school, for high school. Fox graduated high school at the age of 16 and then enrolled in Smith College in Massachusetts.

Smith College (1944-1945, 1947-1949)
Fox attended Smith College from 1944-1945. While attending, she lived in Jordan House. As a freshman, she took courses in Introductory English and Speech, the latter of which was taken to lessen her New York accent. At the end of the year she was named a Sophie Smith Scholar for academic achievement. During the summer after her freshman year, Smith became diagnosed with bulbospinal polio. She spent several months at Sydenham Hospital in Harlem and Knickerbocker Hospital. In September of 1947, Fox returned to Smith College to continue in her Junior year. She lived in Chapin House and joined the honors program for sociology. Her senior honors thesis research involved “learning more about the history of the Soviet Union and the American Communist Party, in examining the status and role of intellectuals in American Society, particularly the literary intelligentsia, and in analyzing the symbolic as well as the economic and political impact of the Depression on the American scene.” Based upon her overall academic achievement and her senior thesis work, Fox graduated from Smith in 1949 with summa cum laude honors. Fox returned to Smith in 1975 to be awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree and in 1980 as a visiting William Allen Neilson Professor of Sociology and Anthropology. As a visiting professor, she taught courses and delivered a lecture series entitled, “Life, Death, and Modern Medicine.”

Whittier College (1946-1947)
Following her long bout with Polio, Fox and her family ventured to Southern California for the summer of 1946. While there it was found that the weather agreed with the still recovering Fox. Wanting to resume her education, she enrolled in Whitter College located in Whitter, California. She spent one year studying and gaining influence from her peers there before returning to Smith College.

Harvard (1949-1954)
After graduating from Smith College, Fox entered the Department of Social Relations of Harvard University in pursuit of a PhD in sociology. At the time women were not eligible for doctorate degrees at Harvard and subsequently her degree was issued by Radcliffe College. It was while at Harvard that Fox met sociologist Talcott Parsons. “What is translucently clear is that it was Talcott Parsons, my foremost teacher and mentor, who had the most profound and enduring influence on shaping the sociologist that I was to become.” Parsons sparked Fox’s initial interest in the field of medical sociology. Fox conducted her dissertation on tuberculosis patients and their physicians, who both cared for the patients and conducted clinical research on them. Her work was published under the title, "Ward F-Second and the Research Physician: A study of Stress and Ways of Coming to Terms with Stress." This was the foundation for her book "Experiment Perilous".