Symposium on Research-Based Interventions for Student Success - Invited Speakers

Associate Professor of Psychology and American Indian Studies

University of Washington

Stephanie Fryberg is an associate professor of psychology and American Indian studies at the University of Washington. She specializes in how social representations of race, culture, and social class influence psychological well-being, physical health, and educational attainment. Fryberg has written and co-authored several articles on identity, individual differences, and cultural psychology.

Associate Professor of Psychology

University of California - Berkeley

Rudy Mendoza-Denton is a researcher of intergroup relations, stigma, stereotyping and prejudice, cultural psychology, and educational achievement. He directs the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, and is the co-editor of the book Are We Born Racist? New Insights from Neuroscience and Positive Psychology (Beacon Press).

Associate Professor of Psychology

Columbia University

Valerie Purdie-Vaughns directs the Laboratory of Intergroup Relations and the Social Mind at Columbia University. Her research explores differences between social groups (e.g. with respect to age, gender, race, nationality, sexual orientation, disability, social class, power) and how they influence human behavior. Purdie-Vaughns is also core faculty for the Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholars Program and research fellow at the Institute for Research on African-American Studies at Columbia.

Assistant Professor of Psychology

Stanford University

Gregory Walton's research investigates psychological processes that contribute to major social problems and how "wise" interventions that target these processes can help address such problems. These psychological interventions can be minor in scope and duration but can generate long-lasting effects. For instance, one 1-hour intervention he developed with Geoffrey Cohen to bolster students' feelings of social belonging in the transition to college raised the academic achievement of ethnic minority students over 3 years, and cut by half the achievement gap with white students. Walton's work was featured in the New York Times Magazine in May 2014.

Post-Doctoral Researcher, Psychological and Brain Sciences

University of Delaware

Rebecca Covarrubias completed her Ph.D. in Social Psychology at the University of Arizona in 2012. Her research examines interventions and educational programs that can increase performance and motivation for underrepresented students. Specifically, she investigate how culture- and self-relevant messages foster belonging and performance for ethnic-minority students and how to improve the college transition and performance of first-generation college students.

Scholarship that drives diversity practice