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
Neighborhood Opportunity and Biological Aging: Results From the Midlife in the United States
Failed retrieving data.Nonrandom Missingness in Child Race and Ethnicity Records and the US Federal Data Standards: Pooled Analysis of Community-Based Child Health Studies
Failed retrieving data.Perceived discrimination and monocyte abundance in older adults: Findings from the Health and Retirement Study
Failed retrieving data.Perceived racial discrimination over the life course and financial stress
Failed retrieving data.Place-based opportunities and physiological stress: understanding neighborhood-level disparities in allostatic load
Failed retrieving data.Racial Discrimination and Substance Use : Results from a 2023 Survey of Racism and Public Health in the United States
Failed retrieving data.Racial Discrimination and Substance Use: Results from a 2023 Survey of Racism and Public Health in the United States
Failed retrieving data.Racial discrimination, religious coping, and cardiovascular disease risk among African American women and men
Failed retrieving data.Relationship stress and epigenetic age acceleration among older US adults in the Midlife in the United States study
Failed retrieving data.Remote work and loneliness: Evidence from a nationally representative sample of employed US adults
Failed retrieving data.Remote work and mental health among employed US adults
Failed retrieving data.Representation of Hispanic Patients in Clinical Trials for Respiratory Failure: A Systematic Review
Failed retrieving data.Safeguarding SNAP as an Effective Antihunger Program : Myths and Potential Harms of Adding Diet Quality as a Core Objective
Failed retrieving data.Safeguarding SNAP as an effective antihunger program: myths and potential harms of adding diet quality as a core objective
Failed retrieving data.Systems science methods reveal and address links between discrimination and health disparities in US food systems
Failed retrieving data.Three underused statistical methods in social epidemiology: multiple informant models, fractional regression, and restricted mean survival time
Failed retrieving data.A novel approach to model cumulative stress : Area under the s-factor curve
Failed retrieving data.Breaking Academic Silos : Pedagogical Recommendations for Equitable Obesity Prevention Training and Research During an Age of Nutrition Polarization
Failed retrieving data.Love after lockup : examining the role of marriage, social status, and financial stress among formerly incarcerated individuals
Failed retrieving data.Racial Discrimination, Religious Coping, and Cardiovascular Disease Risk Among African American Women and Men
Failed retrieving data.The cost of doubt : assessing the association between attributional ambiguity and mental health
Failed retrieving data.Weighing In on the Body Mass Index : Addressing Criticisms and Embracing Purpose
Failed retrieving data.A Novel Approach to Model Cumulative Stress: Area Under the s-factor Curve
Failed retrieving data.Association of Racial Discrimination With Adiposity in Children and Adolescents
Failed retrieving data.Discrimination Exposure and Polygenic Risk for Obesity in Adulthood : Testing Gene-Environment Correlations and Interactions
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