2017 SPSSI Speaker at the National Institute for Teaching of Psychology (NITOP)

  Desdamona Rios, PhD is an assistant professor of Psychology at the University of Houston-Clear Lake where she teaches courses on personality, social psychology, psychology of women, and the psychology of gender, race, and sexuality. Her current projects involve mixed research methods and examine the relationship between culturally relevant cues in academic contexts for at-risk Latinx American high school students and LGBT college students. She has published on the experiences of diverse groups of faculty in STEM fields, and culturally nuanced examples of social support in the lives of gay Latinx American college men. She has also published on her pedagogical practices in two edited books focusing on social justice in the classroom, Deconstructing Privilege: Teaching and Learning as Allies in the Classroom (2013) and Intersectional Pedagogy: Complicating Identity and Social Justice (2017). She serves on the advisory committee for a dialogue series on equity and opportunity in Houston sponsored by the Houston Public Library, and on the board of directors for iServe, a community based academic enrichment, behavioral health, and community service program for at-risk, school aged children. She currently serves as consulting editor for Psychology of Women Quarterly.