Email: mxf4745@nyu.edu
Program: PhD in Counseling Psychology
Year entered Program: 2024
Research Interests: Access to Care for Underserved Communities, Children and Families, ADHD and Disruptive Behavioral Disorders, Dissemination of Evidence-Based Practices, Urban-Poor and Trauma Exposed Communities
Principal Advisor(s): Dr. Anil Chacko
Research Description/Bio:
Madison Forde is a doctoral student in the Counseling/Clinical Psychology program at New York University. Her research focuses on understanding how contextual, familial, interpersonal, and intrapersonal factors influence the development and persistence of behavioral challenges. She is particularly interested in applying this knowledge to develop and optimize community-based, culturally-informed, and accessible interventions aimed at improving service engagement and utilization among under-resourced, urban-poor, and trauma-exposed populations.
Before joining NYU, Madison served as the Lead Research Assistant in the Social Cognitive Affective Neurodevelopment Laboratory at NYU Langone Health. In this role, she conducted multimodal research under Dr. Moriah Thomason on how various environmental and social factors, such as substance use, maternal stress, and trauma, impact child development. She also collaborated with community leaders, including providers, counselors, and parents with lived experiences, to ensure research practices were sensitive to the needs of families facing adversity, such as those involved in child welfare, substance use, and homelessness; this work focused on addressing the legal, ethical, and practical implications of research to protect and promote participant well-being.
Additionally, Madison worked with Dr. Terrie Inder in the Department of Pediatric Newborn Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital on projects examining how a child’s environment and parental mental health influence the cognitive and neurodevelopment of premature infants.
Madison earned her B.A. in Psychology from Amherst College.