Forough is Vice President for Research and Innovation for New Jersey Edge (Edge).  As chief advocate for research and discovery, Forough serves as an advisor and counsel to senior higher education leaders to help translate vision for supporting research collaborations and innovation into actionable Advanced CI strategy leveraging regional and national advanced technology resources. Forough was previously at Rutgers University providing executive management for the Rutgers Discovery Informatics Institute (RDI². Forough's experience in higher education also includes previously serving as associate dean and department chair. Prior to joining academia, she held senior level engineering and management positions at Digital Equipment Corporation and Hewlett Packard (HP), also consulted to Fortune 500 companies in high performance computing environments. Forough is a Senior Member of IEEE, has an appointment to the NSF Engineering Research Visioning Alliance (ERVA) Standing Council, a Vice President for NJBDA's Research Collaboration committee, serves on the Northeast Big Data Innovation Hub and the Ecosystem for Research Networking (ERN) Steering committees. 

Forough has a doctorate in Higher Education Management from University of Pennsylvania, an MBA in Marketing from DePaul University, MS in Computer Science from Villanova University, and BS in Mathematics with a minor in Biology from Pennsylvania State University. 

Forough is consulted on the state, national, and international levels related to STEM workforce development strategies. She is currently a Principal Investigator on two NSF-funded projects: “EAGER: Empowering the AI Research Community through Facilitation, Access, and Collaboration” and “CC* Regional Networking: Connectivity through Regional Infrastructure for Scientific Partnerships, Innovation, and Education (CRISPIE).” She has previously served a co-PI on the NSF CC* OAC: Planning “Advanced Cyberinfrastructure for Teaching and Research at Rowan University and the Southern New Jersey Region,” the NSF CCRI: Planning “A Community Research Infrastructure for Integrated AI-Enabled Malware and Network Data Analysis,” and a co-PI on the NSF ADVANCE Partnership: “New Jersey Equity in Commercialization Collective.”