President-Elect

Heather Bullock is Director of the Center for Economic Justice and Action and Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A community-engaged social psychologist. Heather’s research examines women’s pathways in and out of poverty and homelessness, women’s experiences with public assistance programs, and how classism, racism, and sexism influence policy attitudes and the treatment of low-income women and their families. She served as inaugural chair of the American Psychological Association’s (APA) Committee on Socioeconomic Status, was a member of APA’s Deep Poverty Initiative Working Group, and received an APA Presidential Citation in recognition of her contributions to the field. Her books include Psychology and Economic Injustice: Personal, Professional, and Political Intersections (with Bernice Lott), Women and Poverty: Psychology, Public Policy, and Social Justice, Rugged Individualism and the Misunderstanding of American Inequality (with Lawrence Eppard and Mark Rank), Poorly Understood: What America Gets Wrong about Poverty (with Mark Rank and Lawrence Eppard), and The Psychology of Poverty, Wealth, and Economic Inequality (with Deborah Belle). A dedicated SPSSI member, she served as editor of Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy (ASAP). Heather was an APA/AAAS Congressional Fellow with the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions – Democratic Office, working for Senator Edward M. Kennedy on policies related to poverty, food insecurity, and early childhood education. She earned her Ph.D in Experimental - Social Psychology from the University of Rhode Island and her B.A. from Allegheny College.