Patricia Gurin

Patricia Gurin is the Nancy Cantor Distinguished University Professor Emerita of Psychology and Women’s Studies at the University of Michigan. Gurin also serves as faculty associate of the Research Center for Group Dynamics at the Institute for Social Research and of the Center for African and Afro-American Studies, also at the University of Michigan. She directs the research of the Program on Intergroup Relations, a curricular program co-sponsored by the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts and the Division of Student Affairs.

A social psychologist, Gurin’s work focuses on social identity and its role in political attitudes and behavior; motivation and cognition in achievement settings; and the role of social structure in intergroup relations. She is the author of 10 books, monographs, and articles on these topics. Dialogue Across Difference: Practice, Theory, and Research on Intergroup Dialogue (Russell Sage Foundation, 2013), written with Ratnesh Nagda and Ximena Zúñiga, is her most recent book.

Gurin served as an expert witness on the educational value of diversity in the University of Michigan’s affirmative action cases, Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger, heard by the Supreme Court in 2003.

Gurin holds a doctorate in social psychology from the University of Michigan.