Jennifer Beatty, MA, MAPP, MSEd, is in a class of her own. Her impact is felt every day by students, researchers, and participants in our community because she is as passionate about producing critically compelling research ideas as she is about recommending new recipes and offering writing tips for other students. Jenn’s research program seeks to understand how individuals can better address the cognitive and affective components of intergroup prejudices and stereotypes. A first step to that end is awareness: recognizing that one’s beliefs and actions can be biased. Jenn studies this first step with mixed methods, including studies that ask participants to reflect upon their past experiences of bias and report on their strategies for dealing with those biases. After awareness, it is crucial to take action. To spur action, she has developed and tested a series of interventions that focus on addressing issues of inequity and power by considering how people contextualize and justify their own biases.
This research program has culminated in multiple national conference presentations and submissions to top-tier journals in psychological and brain sciences. True to her interdisciplinary perspective as a scholar, Jenn has also received attention from groups outside of social and personality psychology, including psychoneuroimmunology, positive psychology, and gerontology. As one example of her scholarship, she has recently published an article on how culturally related stressors influence the wellbeing of immigrants in Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology. Furthermore, Jenn recently chaired her first conference symposium at the Gerontological Society of America meeting, and she will next be speaking to an international audience at the meeting for the European Association of Personality Psychology.
Beyond her research, Jenn’s work within the department and university is noteworthy. Most recently, she was inducted into the highly prestigious Bouchet Graduate Honor Society, named for the first African American doctoral recipient in the United States. Bouchet students are honored for their exemplary character, leadership, scholarship, and service. Jenn provides an exemplar on all fronts for our department through her service and dedication to helping graduate and undergraduate students succeed, both professionally and personally. She was a former chair of the Psychology Graduate Student Association (PGSA) and a member of the PGSA diversity committee. Moreover, she was awarded the Department Award for Outstanding Assistant in Instruction for her work in the Psychology of Black Women class in Fall 2023. We are incredibly excited to support Jenn as she completes her dissertation and moves on to the next phase of her career. She is a shining example of scholarly excellence and innovation.