Dr. Forbes earned an AB from Harvard University and an MS and PhD in child clinical and developmental psychology from the University of Pittsburgh. She completed a clinical psychology predoctoral internship and a postdoctoral fellowship at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic (WPIC) before joining the University of Pittsburgh faculty as a Professor of Psychiatry, Psychology, Pediatrics, & Clinical and Translational Science.

Dr. Forbes has received awards including a NIMH Mentored Research Scientist Development (K01) Award, a NARSAD Young Investigator Award, a Klingenstein Third Generation Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

Dr. Forbes employs methods including fMRI, behavior observation, and ecological momentary assessment to examine neurobehavioral aspects of positive affect and reward processing in the development of depression in young people. Her research program has a developmental emphasis, examining reward function against the backdrop of reward function during adolescence, a period of changes in reward-related behavior and physiology. The broad goals of her work are to understand the affective basis of depression and to inform the prevention and treatment of affective disorders.

Watch Dr. Forbes’ 2013 Ted Talk here. 

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