Erica Friedman

Dr. Erica J. Friedman (they/she/he) is the Director of the Tyler Clementi Center for Diversity Education and Bias Prevention at Rutgers University. They bring to this role over 10 years of experience leading and contributing to grant-funded scholars programs and identity-based cultural resource centers that support historically underrepresented and marginalized college communities. They were previously the associate director of the Pride Center at Florida International University and the assistant director of the Research-Aligned Mentorship Program at Farmingdale State College. Dr. Friedman earned their PhD in social-personality psychology from the Graduate Center (CUNY) and a BA in psychology from Binghamton University (SUNY). In addition to their research applying and analyzing best practices that predict greater sense of belonging to college among historically underrepresented and marginalized college student communities, Dr. Friedman also examines the ways in which systemic forms of bias, such as heterosexism and cisgenderism, operate on social life and human cognition, from legislative policies to interpersonal interactions. They apply anti-racist, intersectional feminist, and transformative justice lenses as an educator to reduce harm and increase compassion around human differences.