About Linda

Professor Tropp smiles at the camera, in a turquoise shirt and glasses, in a library setting.

Linda R. Tropp is Professor of Social Psychology and Faculty Associate in Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she joined the faculty in 2006. She received her B.A. from Wellesley College (double major in psychology and Spanish) and her Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of California, Santa Cruz) where she was co-advised by Thomas F. Pettigrew (Emeritus) and Stephen C. Wright (now at Simon Fraser University).

For nearly three decades, Linda Tropp has studied how members of diverse groups experience contact with each other, and how differences in status and power affect cross-group relations, with a dual emphasis on improving relations between groups while achieving ever-greater levels of equality and justice. She has published more than 120 papers, and her influential meta-analysis of intergroup contact effects (co-authored with Thomas Pettigrew) has been cited more than 12,000 times. In recognition of her contributions to the research literature, she has received some of her discipline’s most prestigious awards, including the Scientific Impact Award from the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, the Kurt Lewin Memorial Award from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, and the Nevitt Sanford Award from the International Society of Political Psychology, among others. She has been recognized as a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, along with receiving the Distinguished Academic Outreach in Research Award from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Tropp is coauthor of When Groups Meet: The Dynamics of Intergroup Contact (with Thomas Pettigrew) and editor of several books, including Moving Beyond Prejudice Reduction: Pathways to Positive Intergroup Relations, the Oxford Handbook of Intergroup Conflict, and Making Research Matter: A Psychologist’s Guide to Public Engagement.

Over the course of her career, Tropp has collaborated with a vast range of U.S.-based organizations to improve relations between groups and promote greater social integration, equity, inclusion, and belonging across racial, ethnic, political and religious divides. She has long served as a research advisor for Perception Institute, the National Coalition on School Diversity, Beyond Conflict, and the Karuna Center for Peacebuilding. She has also presented at Congressional seminars and briefings on prejudice, discrimination, and varied forms of social division, and she has worked on state-level and nationwide initiatives to promote positive interracial relations and equity in U.S. public schools. She has also served as an expert reviewer for amicus curiae briefs presented to the U.S. Supreme Court, concerning affirmative action in higher education (e.g. Fisher v. Texas, Grutter v. Bollinger) and voluntary racial integration programs in K-12 public schools (e.g., Parents Involved v. Seattle School District).

Tropp has also worked closely with practitioners, community partners, civil society, and nongovernmental organizations internationally to evaluate interventions that seek to bridge divides and promote more peaceful relations between groups. Over the last several years, she has partnered with the International Organization for Migration (IOM, the UN’s Migration Agency) to provide training and develop resources to enhance the effectiveness of their social mixing programs. With IOM and with the Karuna Center for Peacebuilding, she and her graduate students have also evaluated the effectiveness of contact-based interventions in divided societies such as Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Rwanda.

Alongside her international work, she has recently worked with More in Common to identify opportunities and barriers to bridging across lines of difference in the U.S., and with the Greater Good Science Center to foster bridging and belonging in local communities.

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