About

Alena Forbes, MEd, MS, PhD

Clinical Nutrition Scientist · Qualitative Researcher

Alena Forbes is a clinical nutrition scientist and qualitative researcher whose work centers on human resilience and healthy aging. Her research examines how older women reconstruct resilience after major life disruption and what those processes mean for healthcare, policy, and community practice. She earned her PhD in Integrative and Functional Nutrition with a concentration in Mind-Body Medicine, and brings more than two decades of experience in clinical and biomedical settings to her scholarship. A Certified Nutrition Specialist®, she works at the intersection of lived experience, nutrition science, and lifestyle medicine.

Research interests

• Human resilience
• Healthy aging
• Women's health
• Grounded theory
• Lifestyle medicine
• Clinical nutrition

Education

PhD

Integrative and Functional Nutrition (Mind-Body Medicine concentration), Saybrook University

MS

Clinical Nutrition (inflammatory / autoimmune focus), University of Bridgeport

MEd

Master of Education

Credentials & affiliations

• Certified Nutrition Specialist® (CNS) — American Nutrition Association®
• Add current memberships, appointments, or affiliations here.

Selected publications

See the Publications page for the dissertation, peer-reviewed articles, and CV.