Forest was born and raised in Idaho, attended high school and community college in California, and earned degrees from Georgetown University, Stanford University and Boston College.
He founded the Center for Terrorism and Security Studies (CTSS) at UMass Lowell in 2013 and served as its Director from 2015 to 2016.
[1][2][3] He is also a visiting professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
[4] He is the former director of Terrorism Studies at the United States Military Academy and a former senior fellow at the U.S. Joint Special Operations University.
[7] He has been cited as a terrorism expert by dozens of news outlets including CNN,[8] CBS,[9] The Globe Post,[10] CNBC,[11] and the Christian Science Monitor,[12] and is Editor-in-Chief of the academic research journal Perspectives on Terrorism.