On Thursday, April 11, 2013, the Center for Women in Law will host a talk by Professor Mahzarin Banaji, Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University and an expert on the science behind unconscious thinking and feeling as they unfold in social context.
Banaji will speak at the Four Seasons Hotel in Austin from 2:35 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. on the research behind her new book, Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People. Using a test she codeveloped (the Implicit Association Test), Banaji will demonstrate how subtle biases influence interactions with other attorneys and judges, efforts to persuade juries, and the perceptions of our clients and witnesses. Her talk will be followed by a Q&A session.
Banaji was elected fellow of the Society for Experimental Psychologists in 2005, and in 2009 she was named Herbert A. Simon Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. She is also a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association for Psychological Science, of which she was president. Banaji has demonstrated her devotion to undergraduate and graduate education by serving as director of undergraduate studies at Yale and as head tutor at Harvard, as well as by winning Yale’s Lex Hixon Prize for Teaching Excellence.
Banaji received her bachelor of the arts degree from Nizam College and her master of the arts in Psychology from Osmania University in Hyderabad. In 1986, she received her PhD from Ohio State University, and she later became an NIH postdoctoral fellow at University of Washington.