Co-Director, Public Engagement Project

Professor, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences

Linda R. Tropp, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychology. She received the 2012 Distinguished Academic Outreach Award from the University of Massachusetts Amherst for excellence in the application of scientific knowledge to advance the public good. Her research concerns how members of different groups approach and experience contact with each other, and how group differences in status affect cross-group relations. She has worked with national organizations to present social science evidence in U.S. Supreme Court cases on racial integration, on state and national initiatives to improve interracial relations in schools, and with non-governmental and international organizations to evaluate applied programs designed to reduce racial and ethnic conflict. She has introduced intergroup research into broader public debates through citations in newspaper and magazine articles (New York Times, Boston Globe, O Magazine, Associated Press, ABC News, BBC News, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Tampa Bay Times, among others) and being interviewed on radio and television (Talk of the Nation, WAMC Northeast Public Radio; TVO Toronto).