Adolfo Cuevas
Adolfo Cuevas
Associate Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences
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Professional overview
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Adolfo G. Cuevas, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at NYU's School of Global Public Health, where he also co-directs the BioSocial Research Initiative (BSRI). His research examines how psychosocial stressors influence health across the lifespan, using epidemiological, psychological, and biological approaches to understand these relationships.
Dr. Cuevas currently leads three NIH-funded projects, totaling nearly $7 million, that investigate the effect of psychosocial stressors on biological dysregulation. These studies investigate how psychosocial stress contributes to biological dysregulation. His first project (R01DK137805; 2024–2029) addresses a key gap in the field by examining how social adversity affects allostatic load across three life course stages and identifying gene expression pathways that link adversity to biological stress. It is also the first study to assess how social relationships—such as kinship and community ties—buffer the impact of social adversity on gene expression and stress physiology. His two additional projects (R01DK137246 and R01MD019251) explore the role of neighborhood and interpersonal stress in obesity across developmental stages, from childhood to older adulthood, with a focus on molecular indicators of stress-related proinflammatory biology that may contribute to adipose tissue formation.
Dr. Cuevas’ work has appeared in leading journals including Annals of Internal Medicine, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, and American Journal of Public Health. It has also been featured by media outlets such as Forbes, USA Today, and NPR’s Code Switch.
In recognition of his contributions to research on stress and health, Dr. Cuevas has received numerous honors, including the Herbert Weiner Early Career Award, the National Minority Quality Forum’s 40 Under 40 Leaders in Minority Health Award, and the Diversity Scholar Award from the Nutrition Obesity Research Center at Harvard University.
Prior to joining NYU, he was the Gerald R. Gill Assistant Professor of Race, Culture, and Society at Tufts University. He earned his PhD and MS in applied psychology from Portland State University and completed postdoctoral training at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
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Education
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PhD, Applied Psychology, Portland State UniversityMS, Applied Psychology, Portland State UniversityBA, Psychology, City College of New York, 2010Certificate, Applied Biostatistics, Harvard Catalyst
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Honors and awards
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National Institute of Health Loan Repayment-Renewal (2021)Diversity Scholar Award, Nutrition Obesity Research Center, Harvard University (2019)National Institute of Health Loan Repayment (2019)40 Under 40 Leaders in Health, National Minority Quality Forum (2018)Neubauer Faculty Fellowship, Tufts University (2017)Portland African American Leadership Fellowship (2013)National Cancer Institute R25E Summer Research Experience, The University of Texas MD, Anderson’s Cancer Prevention Research Training Program (2012)Bernard R. Ackerman Foundation Award for Outstanding Scholarship (2010)Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge Graduate of the Year (2010)City University of New York Pipeline Fellowship (2009)City University of New York Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge (SEEK) Scholarship (2009)Psi Chi Honor Society (2009)Dean’s List Scholar (20082009)Chi Alpha Epsilon (XAE) Honor Society (2008)City College of New York’s William Wright Scholarship (2008)City College of New York Community Service Award (2008)SEEK Scholarship (2008)
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Areas of research and study
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ObesityPsychosocial StressRacial/Ethnic Disparities
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Publications
Publications
Discrimination exposure and lymphocyte differentiation: Results from the health and retirement study
Failed retrieving data.Neighborhood Opportunity and Cellular Senescence in a National Sample of US Adults
Failed retrieving data.Perceived Discrimination and Immunological Aging: A Systematic Review of Cellular and Molecular Markers
Failed retrieving data.Religiosity, Spiritual Practices, and Epigenetic Aging: Insights from a Population-Based Sample of Middle-Aged US Adults
Failed retrieving data.Adverse childhood experiences patterns and biological aging in a representative sample of older Americans
Failed retrieving data.Aging anxiety and epigenetic aging in a national sample of adult women in the United States
Failed retrieving data.Burden of Unfair Treatment and Subclinical Atherosclerotic Risk Among Black Adults: The Moderating Role of Religious Coping
Failed retrieving data.Cumulative Racism and Substance use: Results from the 2023 Racism and Public Health Study
Failed retrieving data.Differential associations between relationship stressors and natural killer cell gene expression by race/ethnicity and sex among older US adults
Failed retrieving data.Discrimination and dendritic cell abundance among older adults in the health and retirement study
Failed retrieving data.Discrimination and the Immune System among Adults
Failed retrieving data.Experiences of patient-provider concordance in healthcare among All of Us participants, 2017-2023
Failed retrieving data.Experiences of patient-provider concordance in healthcare among All of Us participants, 2017–2023
Failed retrieving data.From Discrimination to Disease : The Role of Inflammation
Failed retrieving data.From discrimination to disease: the role of inflammation
Failed retrieving data.From social determinants to the molecular level: Investigating the relationship between discrimination exposure and lymphocyte differentiation using the Health and Retirement Study
Failed retrieving data.Genetic and environmental contributions to the associations between midlife personality and late-life metabolic health
Failed retrieving data.Genetic and environmental contributions to the associations between midlife personality and late???life metabolic health
Failed retrieving data.Intersecting race/ethnicity and gender in physiological dysregulation profiles and associations with socioeconomic status among older adults in the United States
Failed retrieving data.Intersecting race/ethnicity and gender in physiological dysregulation profiles and associations with socioeconomic status among older adults in the United States
Failed retrieving data.Interventions to improve racial and ethnic equity in critical care: A scoping review
Failed retrieving data.Measurement invariance of the perceived discrimination scale across race/ethnicity and sex: Findings from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) study
Failed retrieving data.Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islanders : Disparities in the Prevalence of Multiple Chronic Conditions
Failed retrieving data.Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islanders: Disparities in the Prevalence of Multiple Chronic Conditions
Failed retrieving data.Neighborhood disadvantage and elevated CD14 gene expression among middle-aged adults: Findings from the Midlife in the United States study
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