Sandra Graham

Sandra Graham is a Distinguished Professor in the Human Development and Psychology division in the Department of Education at UCLA and the University of California Presidential Chair in Education and Diversity. She received her BA from Barnard College, an MA in History from Columbia University, and her PhD in Education from UCLA. Graham is a developmental social psychologist. Her major research interests include the study of academic motivation and social development in children of color, particularly in school contexts that vary in racial/ethnic diversity. She focuses on how school context variables such as racial/ethnic diversity contribute to the development of cross-ethnic friendships, positive intergroup attitudes, multiple social identities, coping with peer victimization, and the reduction of achievement disparities between different racial/ethnic groups. Among her awards, she is a 2011 recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Child Development Award from the Society for Research on Child Development, the 2014 E. L. Thorndike Career Award for Distinguished Contributions to Educational Psychology, Division 15 of the American Psychological Association, the 2023 James Jackson Lifetime Achievement Award for Transformative Scholarship, Association for Psychological Science (APS) and the 2023 AERA Division C Sylvia Scribner Award for outstanding contributions to the field of learning and instruction. In 2015 she was elected to the National Academy of Education. She is a Fellow in the American Psychological Association, Association of Psychological Science, and American Educational Research Association.