Chad Forbes

Chad E. Forbes, PhD, is an associate professor of social neuroscience in the Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation at Arizona State University. As a first-generation college student, he earned his bachelor’s degree in psychology (minors in biology and chemistry) from Long Beach State University, followed by his master’s and doctoral degrees in psychology with emphases in social and cognitive neuroscience from the University of Arizona. Forbes also pursued postdoctoral training in the Cognitive Neuroscience Section at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. His research examines health disparities broadly, and particularly the role that various forms of bias play in modulating stigmatized individuals’ physical and mental health. Forbes examines these questions using social psychological, cognitive, neuroscience, and big data methods in conjunction with a biopsychosocial framework to establish how dynamic interactions between factors like biology (e.g., physiological stress, functional brain networks, genetic polymorphisms), memory, culture and social networks foster resilience or risk for diseases like Alzheimer's Disease and cancer. This work has resulted in a number of federally funded grants and publications in a variety of top-tier journals in the field, including Annual Reviews of Neuroscience, Cerebral Cortex, and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and recognition from the American Psychological Association as a “Rising Star” in psychology.