Tessa Charlesworth

Tessa Charlesworth is an Assistant Professor of Management and Organizations. Her research tackles the questions of how and why our thoughts (beliefs) and feelings (attitudes) change over time. In particular, how and why do the biases about social groups shift towards or away from prejudice? What is it about our minds and our society that make some beliefs easier to change than others? Her research adopts a multi-level and multi-method approach to understand change as it unfolds within individuals, organizations, and the broadest level of our collectives.
Professor Charlesworth’s research has been published in leading outlets including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Psychological Science, Harvard Business Review, and American Psychologist, and has been featured in the popular press including Scientific American, NPR, The New York Times, and Forbes. Her work has also positioned her as the primary science advisor for the Smithsonian Institution’s traveling exhibit on The Bias Inside Us.

Professor Charlesworth earned her B.A. in Psychology, summa cum laude and phi beta kappa, from Columbia University, and her Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Harvard University, for which she earned the dissertation award from the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences. Professor Charlesworth was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada taken at the University of Toronto and Harvard University.