Manisha obtained a B.S. in Business Administration, and a B.A. in Social Welfare, from the University of California at Berkeley before joining the program at UMass. During graduate school, the majority of her research focused on investigating antecedents and consequences of prejudice between ethnic minority groups, and methods of improving cross-ethnic coalition building, for which she was awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

Manisha will begin The Jacquelin Goldman Congressional Fellowship from the American Psychological Association starting in September, 2015. This provides psychologists with an interest in policies that affect the psychological development of children with an invaluable public policy learning experience; to contribute to the more effective use of psychological knowledge in government; and to broaden awareness about the value of psychology-government interaction among psychologists and within the federal government.