On Friday, September 11 from 12 to 2 in LGRC A112, Prof. Buju Dasgupta will be presenting and leading: “Change the ‘Wallpaper:’ Using a science-backed approach to build a culture that grows talent, performance, collaboration, and retention in research and education.” This event is co-sponsored with the Institute of Diversity Sciences, College of Natural Sciences, and Center for Teaching and Learning. Please RSVP on this form to help us estimate numbers. We hope to see many of you there!
Nilanjana (Buju) Dasgupta is a Provost Professor of Psychology and founding Director of the Institute of Diversity Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She earned her PhD in social psychology from Yale University and a Bachelor’s degree in psychology and neuroscience from Smith College. A leading scholar of implicit bias and diversity science, Dr. Dasgupta integrates laboratory research with real-world settings to address complex social problems. With collaborators, she develops and tests interventions that reduce the impact of implicit bias and structural barriers in higher education using lab and field experiments.
Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and American Psychological Foundation, and featured in outlets including The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, PBS News Hour, ABC News, Wired, Boston Globe, Scientific American Mind, and many others.
Dr. Dasgupta’s contributions have been recognized by the NSF CAREER Award, the Hidden Bias Research Prize, SPSP’s Award for Application of Personality and Social Psychology, the Christine A. Stanley Award for Diversity and Inclusion Research, and the Chancellor's Medal for Outstanding Research at UMass Amherst. She is also a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, Society for Experimental Social Psychology, Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and the Mind and Life Institute.
Her new book, Change the Wallpaper: Transforming Cultural Patterns to Build More Just Communities (Yale University Press, 2025), presents a science-based approach to culture change in service of greater justice. Drawing on her own and others’ research, the book demonstrates how situational forces nudge people’s thoughts and behaviors in small ways like wallpaper in the background—these can either deepen divisions or foster inclusion. By learning to recognize and harness these forces, readers are invited to counteract polarization and build trust, leaving them with both a call to action and hope for meaningful change.
(as per the Society for Personality and Social Psychology)
