Chris Fox started off as an undergraduate at Michigan State University studying mathematics, but got sidetracked into English literature, and then into philosophy. He ended up getting both BA and MA degrees in philosophy before becoming discouraged with the job market and switching to information science at Syracuse University. He graduated from Syracuse in 1982 with an MS in computer science and a Ph.D. in information studies.

Chris taught computer science for a few years at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, but thinking that industry might be more exciting, he took a job at Lockheed Dialog Information Services in Palo Alto, California. In 1985 he moved on to AT&T Bell Laboratories in New Jersey. Although AT&T had been broken up a few years before, Bell Laboratories was still a vibrant and exciting place through the 1980s, and Chris had the opportunity to work as a software product designer, user interface designer, programmer, tester, lead developer, and quality consultant on projects of great diversity, including a statistical quality control program, a prototype expert system that used image classification to obtain input, a prototype personal workstation GUI, and a long-distance salesperson salary compensation system. Chris left Bell Labs for about a year in 1990 to become the technical lead in a start-up company that attempted to develop and market an electronic patent search and retrieval system, but returned to Bell Labs when the company failed. These industrial experiences emphasized the importance of practical problems in software development, and software engineering has been Chris's main research interest ever since.

Bell Labs had changed quite a bit by the end of the 1980s and Chris left for good in 1992 for a faculty position in the computer science department at James Madison University. At JMU Chris had the opportunity to help develop curricula and teach in a fledgling interdisciplinary science program, which he did for about six years, before devoting his attention more exclusively to computer science. During his time at JMU Chris has served as the computer science department's undergraduate coordinator, graduate coordinator, and head, and has taught courses in software engineering and the core areas of computer science. He also occasionally sits in on a philosophy course.

Chris has published articles and book on information retrieval and software engineering, and is currently writing a software design textbook. He is raising two daughters in a bilingual household with his wife Zsuzsa, a native of Hungary. Chris enjoys reading science fiction and nineteenth century British novels, especially those by Charles Dickens.