The Robert L. Harris, Jr. ADVANCEments in Science Lecture

Claude M. Steele, internationally renowned social scientist and Dean of the Graduate School of Education at Stanford, will discuss his theory of stereotype threat, which has been the focus of much of his research and writing throughout his academic career. The theory examines how people from different groups, being threatened by different stereotypes, can have quite different experiences in the same situation. It has also been used to understand group differences in performance ranging from the intellectual to the athletic. Steele's recent book, "Whistling Vivaldi: And Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us and what we Can Do," published in 2010, was based on this research and lays out a plan to mitigate the negative effects of “stereotype threat”.

Claude M. Steele is the I. James Quillen Dean of the Graduate School of Education at Stanford. Previously, he served as the 21st Provost of Columbia University, and before that, as a professor of psychology at Stanford. He is the author of numerous published articles and is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Education, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.