Nilanjana (Buju) Dasgupta is Professor of Psychology and the Director of Faculty Equity and Inclusion at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst. Her research is on implicit bias. Whereas past work had assumed that implicit bias is learned early in life and difficult to change, her research shows that such bias can be changed given the right social context. Recently, her work focuses on how implicit gender bias about science and engineering shakes the confidence of women and students of color in STEM. She identifies learning environments that foster social connection, inoculates students against negative stereotypes, and promotes their confidence, persistence and success in STEM. This work has been supported by grants from the NSF and NIH. She spends a good bit of time disseminating this research to broad audiences including K-12 teachers and administrators, university faculty and campus leaders, tech entrepreneurs, federal and state policy-makers, lawyers, judges, and legal scholars.
