I am a Professor of Psychological Science and the Associate Vice Provost and Executive Director for the Center for Teaching and Learning at Oregon State University . I was born and raised in Bombay, India, received a B.A. in psychology at Carleton College (MN), and a Masters and Ph.D. in social and personality psychology at the University of Washington (WA), and then spent three years at UCLA as a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Research fellow, and twenty years at the University of Wisconsin in Green Bay.
I have received numerous local, state, and national grants for my health psychological and social psychological research on cultural differences in stress, social support, smoking cessation, body image and impression formation. I have published articles in a variety of scholarly journals including Psychological Review and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, and Teaching of Psychology, have a textbook, Health Psychology: A Cultural Approach, relating culture, development, and health published with Cengage (now in its third edition) and am also the co-author/co-editor of 15 other books (see CV). I have made over 150 presentations and given workshops nationally and internationally (e.g. Australia, India, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand).
I love to teach. I am a dedicated teacher and have strong interests in enhancing faculty development and student understanding. I was Co-Director of the University of Wisconsin System Teaching Scholars Program, have been a UWGB Teaching Fellow, a UW System Teaching Scholar, and honoroed to have won some awards: The CASE Wisconsin Professor of the Year, the UW System Regents Teaching Award, the UW-Green Bay Founder’s Award for Excellence in Teaching as well as the Founder’s Award for Scholarship, UW Teaching-at-its-Best, Creative Teaching, and Featured Faculty Awards. I have strong interests in teaching and pedagogy and have organized statewide and national teaching conferences, am a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, and the Midwestern Psychological Association. I have served on the Div.2 (Teaching of Psychology) Taskforce for Diversity, as Chair of the Div. 38 (Health Psychology) Education and Training Council, and as President of the Society for the Teaching of Psychology. I was founding Co-Editor of APA's journal SoTL in Psychology.
When not helping people stay calm, reading and writing, I enjoy culinary explorations, travel, time with my two children, and avoiding political discussions of any kind.
