Dr. Robert Livingston is a social psychologist and one of the nation鈥檚 leading experts on the science underlying bias and racism. For two decades, he has served as a diversity consultant to scores of Fortune 500 companies, public-sector agencies, and non-profit organizations. Prior to joining the Harvard Kennedy School in 2015, he held professorships at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Northwestern University鈥檚 Kellogg School of Management, and the University of Sussex, where he was the chair of the organizational behavior area as well as the founder and faculty director of Centre for Leadership, Ethics, and Diversity (LEAD).
Dr. Livingston鈥檚 research has appeared in聽The New York Times,听The Wall Street Journal, and聽Harvard Business Review. His ranges from micro-level investigations of the psychological and physiological processes that underlie unconscious bias鈥攖o more macro-level examinations how biases impact organizational diversity, leadership representation, and social justice. For example, his research on the 鈥淭eddy Bear Effect鈥 finds that Black CEO鈥檚 uniquely benefit from having facial features that make them appear warmer and less threatening (i.e., babyfaceness). He is also known for his research on the intersectionality of race and gender, and how the nature of bias systematically differs for White women, Black women, and Black men.
His work has been published in top-tier academic journals such as the聽Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,听Academy of Management Journal,听Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,听Psychological Science,听Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and聽Leadership Quarterly. He is the author of聽The Conversation: How Seeking and Speaking the Truth about Racism Can Radically Transform Individuals and Organizations聽published by Penguin Random House in February 2021.
In his spare time, he enjoys jazz, wine and whiskey tasting, gastronomy, philosophy, interior design, real estate investing, hiking, and nature documentaries. He has resided in five countries and speaks four languages.