Professor Richard Contrada is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. His primary area of expertise is the psychosocial and emotional factors involved in the development and course of chronic physical disease. He is also interested in why patients fail to undertake health-promoting behaviors for managing chronic medical conditions.

Professor Contrada's work has been published in numerous influential scientific journals, and he has edited two books. He has served in editorial capacities with journals such as Health Psychology, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Applied Social Psychology and many others.

In 2020 Professor Contrada received the Excellence in Health Psychology Mentoring Award from the Society for Health Psychology in the American Psychological Association. He is also a recipient of the Rutgers University Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching.

Media outlets that have covered Professor Contrada’s work include Time, Psych Central, Science Daily and Yahoo News.