Bernice Elizabeth Forrest is an Associate Professor of History. She received a Ph.D. in U. S. History from Tulane University in 1983 with degreed fields in U.S. Social and Intellectual 1865-1945, Medieval European Institutional and Intellectual History to 1150 CE, American Literature to 1945, and African-American History and Literature to 1945. Specific research interests include Native American Indian ethnohistory east of the Mississippi; U.S. social history, 1865-1980; traditional West African (Yoruba) religion and syncretism in the western hemisphere; specializations in postbellum cultural and intellectual history, medieval Europe to 1150, and American literature to 1945.

Forrest stresses critical (analytical) thinking skills in students' written and oral responses. Courses utilize a variety of pedagogical tools such as dialectical notebooks (journals), "one-minute" paper commentaries on films, case studies, and rubrics for expository writing.

She was designated a Coolidge Fellow by the Association for Religion in Intellectual Life (ARIL) at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York to research northeastern seaboard Algonquian spirituality. Forrest has conducted archival and field investigations at the Poosepatuck (Unkechaug Nation) Indian Reservation (Mastic, NY), and the Shinnecock Indian Reservation (Southampton, NY) since 1984. Forrest's current project is an ethnohistory of the Poosepatuck (Unkechaug Nation) on Long Island, NY, from 1700 to the present. She is a blood and enrolled member of the Montauk Indian Nation (Sag Harbor, NY; enrollment number 316 [Bernice {F.}orrest Guillaume]).

Forrest's awards include Newberry Library, NEH, and New York University Scholar-in-Residence fellowships. Publications include The Collected Works of Olivia Ward Bush-Banks (Oxford, 1991), and she served for seven years as the History, Philosophy, and Religious Studies panel chairman for the National Research Council/Ford Foundation Fellowships for Minorities Program.