Dominic Fareri

Dominic Fareri is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the Gordon F. Derner School of Psychology, Adelphi University. He serves as the Director of the Neuroscience Program and Co-Chair of Undergraduate Psychology, demonstrating leadership in both research and academic administration. His research is centered on understanding how social environments shape decision-making and the neural processing of incentives.

His research interests include:

• Cognitive and Social Neuroscience
• Decision-Making and Risk Assessment
• Neural Mechanisms of Trust and Reciprocity
• Development of Reward Circuitry
• Functional Connectivity in Social Contexts
• Impact of Early Life Stress on Brain Development

Analysis of his recent publications reveals a strong focus on social value computation, trust dynamics, and the role of relationships in modulating brain activity, particularly in the default mode network and ventral striatum. His work integrates behavioral, physiological, and multimodal neuroimaging approaches, drawing from social, cognitive, affective neuroscience, and neuroeconomics. A recurring theme is how social context—such as relationship closeness or group membership—influences reward processing and decision-making across development.

His scientific contributions have been recognized with awards including the 2018 APS Rising Star and participation in the Summer School in Social Neuroscience and Neuroeconomics. He has also received competitive fellowships and honors for his scholarly work.

Dominic Fareri has secured significant research funding as Principal Investigator (PI) and Co-Investigator (Co-I) from the National Institute on Mental Health (NIMH), National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), and Adelphi University. His active grant from NIMH (R15) investigates how social support influences neural value computations. He also contributes as a consultant on substance use research and collaborates on developmental studies of close relationships. He mentors students through doctoral thesis supervision and research practica, and is actively engaged in the scientific community through editorial and peer-review roles for journals such as Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience and The Journal of Neuroscience.

He leads the Fareri Lab, where interdisciplinary research on social and affective neuroscience is conducted, integrating theory and methods from psychology, neuroscience, and economics to explore the neural underpinnings of human social behavior.