Mahzarin Rustum Banaji FBA (born 1956) is an American

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the pre ...

of Indian origin at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

, known for her work popularizing the concept of implicit bias in regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, and other factors.

Education and career

She was born and raised in

Secunderabad Secunderabad, also spelled as Sikandarabad (, ), is a twin city of Hyderabad and one of the six zones of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) in the Indian state of Telangana. It is the headquarters of the South Central Railway ...

to a

Parsi Parsis () or Parsees are an ethnoreligious group of the Indian subcontinent adhering to Zoroastrianism. They are descended from Persians who migrated to Medieval India during and after the Arab conquest of Iran (part of the early Muslim conq ...

family, where she attended St. Ann's High School. Her BA degree is from Nizam College, and her MA degree in psychology from

Osmania University Osmania University is a collegiate public state university located in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. Mir Osman Ali Khan, the 7th Nizam of Hyderabad in 1918 , He released a farman to establish OSMANIA UNIVERSITY on the day of 28 August 1918. ...

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River, in the northern part of Southern Indi ...

. In 1986, Banaji received a PhD from The

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best pub ...

and was an NIH

postdoctoral fellow A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to p ...

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seatt ...

. From 1986 to 2001, she taught at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...

, where she was Reuben Post Halleck Professor of Psychology. In 2001, she moved to Harvard University as Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics in the Department of Psychology. She also served as the first Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the

Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University—also known as the Harvard Radcliffe Institute—is a part of Harvard University that fosters interdisciplinary research across the humanities, sciences, social sciences, arts, a ...

from 2002 to 2008. In 2005, Banaji was elected fellow of the

Society of Experimental Psychologists The Society of Experimental Psychologists (SEP), originally called the Society of Experimentalists, is an academic society for experimental psychologists. It was founded by Edward Bradford Titchener Edward Bradford Titchener (11 January 1867 ...

. She was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

in 2008. In 2009, she was named Herbert A. Simon Fellow of the

American Academy of Political and Social Science The American Academy of Political and Social Science (AAPSS) was founded in 1889 to promote progress in the social sciences. Sparked by Professor Edmund J. James and drawing from members of the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, Swarthmore ...

. She was elected as a Corresponding Fellow of the

British Academy The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars s ...

in 2015. In 2016, the

Association for Psychological Science The Association for Psychological Science (APS), previously the American Psychological Society, is an international non-profit organization whose mission is to promote, protect, and advance the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in ...

named Banaji one of its William James Fellows, an award given to outstanding contributors to scientific psychology. She was elected to the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...

in 2018.

Current affiliations

Banaji is a Fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

, the

American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It ha ...

(Divisions 1, 3, 8 and 9), and the Association for Psychological Science. She served as Secretary of the APS, on the Board of Scientific Affairs of the APA, and on the Executive Committee of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology. Banaji was President of the Association for Psychological Science in 2010–2011. She is an external professor at the

Santa Fe Institute The Santa Fe Institute (SFI) is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, inclu ...

, where she contributes to programs on behavior and decision-making. Banaji has served as Associate Editor of ''

Psychological Review ''Psychological Review'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal that covers psychology, psychological theory. It was established by James Mark Baldwin (Princeton University) and James McKeen Cattell (Columbia University) in 1894 as a publica ...

'' and the '' Journal of Experimental Social Psychology'' and co-edited Essays in Social Psychology for Psychology Press. She serves on an advisory board of the

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...

on Social Cognition and Social Neuroscience. She has served or serves on the editorial board of several journals, among them '' Psychological Science'', ''Psychological Review'', '' Perspectives on Psychological Science'', '' Behavioral and Brain Sciences'', '' Social Cognition'', ''

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology The ''Journal of Personality and Social Psychology'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the American Psychological Association that was established in 1965. It covers the fields of social and personality psychology. The ed ...

'', and '' Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience''. Her research has been funded by the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...

, the National Institutes of Health, and the Third Millennium Foundation, among other organizations. Banaji was Director of Undergraduate Studies at Yale and has served as Head Tutor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at Harvard.

Honors and awards

Most recently, she received U.S. Congress' Golden Goose Award, was inducted as a member to the National Academy of Sciences, named a Distinguished Member of Psi Chi, an International Honor Society in Psychology, received the Scientific Impact Award from the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, Distinguished Cognitive Scientist Award from the University of California, Distinguished Theoretical and Empirical Contributions to Basic Research in Psychology Award from the American Psychological Association, the Campbell Award for Distinguished Scholarly Achievement and Ongoing Sustained Excellence in Research in Social Psychology from the Society of Personality and Social Psychology, Distinguished Alumnus Award, from The Ohio State University, William James Fellow Award for a Lifetime of Significant Intellectual Contributions to the Basic Science of Psychology from the Association for Psychological Science, Kurt Lewin Award for Outstanding Contributions to Psychological Research and Social Action from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, and Corresponding Fellow from the British Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Among her other awards, she has received Yale's Lex Hixon Prize for Teaching Excellence, a James McKeen Cattell Fund Award, the Morton Deutsch Award for Social Justice, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. In 1999, her work with R. Bhaskar received the

Gordon Allport Gordon Willard Allport (November 11, 1897 – October 9, 1967) was an American psychologist. Allport was one of the first psychologists to focus on the study of the personality, and is often referred to as one of the founding figures of personali ...

Prize for Intergroup Relations. Her career contributions have been recognized by a Presidential Citation from the American Psychological Association in 2007, the Diener Award for Outstanding Contributions to Social Psychology in 2008, and the APA Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Psychology from the

in 2017. She was also awarded an honorary doctorate degree by

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

in 2017. Banaji was honored alongside Anthony Greenwald and Brian Nosek by the American Association for the Advancement of Science with a 2018 Golden Goose Award for their work on implicit bias. In 2020 she was elected to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

Major publications

* A seminal article on two primary research methods (experimental and ecological) and issues associated with each. *. A response to some commentary on their article, and their attempt to clarify some of their points. *Greenwald, A. G. & Banaji, M. R. (1995). Implicit social cognition: Attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes. Psychological Review, 102, 4-27. *Greenwald, A. G., Banaji, M. R., Rudman, L., Farnham, S., Nosek, B. A., & Mellott, D. (2002). A unified theory of implicit attitudes, stereotypes, self-esteem, and self-concept. Psychological Review, 109, 3-25. *Green, A. R., Carney, D. R., Pallin, D. J., Ngo, L. H., Raymond, K. L., Iezzoni, L., & Banaji, M. R. (2007). Implicit bias among physicians and its prediction of thrombolysis decisions for black and white patients. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 22, 1231–1238. *Greenwald, A. G. & Banaji, M. R. (2013). ''Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People''. Delacorte Press,

References

External links

Mahzarin Banaji's academic web pageImplicit Project's Harvard WebsiteProject ImplicitA Chance Road to Harvard
in

The Harvard Crimson ''The Harvard Crimson'' is the student newspaper of Harvard University and was founded in 1873. Run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates, it served for many years as the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Beginning in the f ...

"See No Bias"
in

the Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...

"The Implicit Prejudice"
in

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...

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