Geraldine Downey

Vice Provost for Diversity Initiatives and Professor of Psychology, Columbia University

Geraldine Downey as the vice provost for diversity initiatives at Columbia University works to implement the University’s diversity mission statement and in particular leads efforts to increase the diversity of Columbia’s faculty, administration, and officers of research, especially those historically under-represented in American higher education. The office also works to build pipelines that will substantially increase the representation of such groups in the University’s undergraduate and graduate populations.

In her role as vice provost, Downey plans to give special attention to the question of diversity in the sciences—an issue of national concern and one in which Columbia can become a national leader. She will also continue current efforts to advance diversity generally in the arts and sciences and in the professional schools.

Downey is a professor in the Department of Psychology and was formerly chair of the Department. As professor and former department chair, she has extensive experience in faculty recruitment and development. She also serves as director of Columbia’s Social Relations Laboratory.

Her primary research area is the study of personal- and status-based rejection. Trained as a developmental psychologist, she has conducted extensive research on rejection sensitivity in the context of interpersonal relationships and in institutional settings such as schools. Downey’s research has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and the Russell Sage  Foundation. Her scholarship has been published in a number of leading scholarly journals, including