Sunil Bhatia

Professor Sunil Bhatia is a globally recognized professor specializing in psychology and human development, particularly in cultural psychology, race, and identity formation. His research encompasses narrative psychology, racism, migration, and globalization, focusing on how cultural contexts shape psychological growth. He frequently explores the interplay of culture, identity, and human development within diverse sociocultural settings. Bhatia teaches courses including “Globalization and Cultural Identity,” "Media, Self, and Society,” "Qualitative Inquiry and Ethnographic Methods,” and “Language, Narrative, and Self."

His book publications include American Karma: Race, Culture and Identity in the Indian Diaspora (2007, New York University Press) and Decolonizing Psychology: Globalization, Social Justice and Indian Youth Identities (2018, Oxford University Press). His second book received the 2018 William James Book Award from the American Psychological Association. This highly prestigious award honors a recent book that combines diverse psychology subfields and related disciplines. The International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry also awarded Decolonizing Psychology an "honorable mention" for its Outstanding 2018 Qualitative Book Award.

Over the last two decades, Professor Bhatia has produced a substantial body of highly regarded scholarship, including over 50 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, two books, and three special issues in premier psychology and human development journals. He has published on topics related to transnational migration, identity, and cultural psychology in journals including American Psychologist, Human Development, Culture and Psychology, Theory and Psychology, and History of Psychology. Currently, Professor Bhatia is co-editing a special issue for American Psychologist titled “Towards a decolonial psychology: Recentering and reclaiming global marginalized knowledges” and a Handbook on Decolonial Psychology for Routledge. Both projects are slated for publication in Fall 2025. He has delivered over 25 keynotes and plenary talks and given over 160 invited lectures, symposia, colloquium, and conference presentations to audiences worldwide at various universities, colleges, and online conferences in the U.S. and abroad. You can listen to his podcast on "Decolonizing Psychology" for Mad in America here.

He is an associate editor for the Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology and serves on six editorial boards, including Qualitative Psychology, American Psychologist, and Review of General Psychology. He was the Program Chair for Division 24 of the American Psychological Association in 2015. In 2014, the American Psychological Association elected Sunil as a “Fellow” for his outstanding local, national, and international contributions to psychology. In 2024, Professor Bhatia was elected President of the Society of Qualitative Inquiry in Psychology, a division of the American Psychological Association. In 2023, Professor Bhatia was appointed as a Visiting Scholar in the Anthropology Department at Harvard University.

Professor Bhatia has earned numerous international and college-wide awards for his exceptional research, teaching, and service. These honors include the 2018 Nancy Batson Nisbet Rash Faculty Research Award from Connecticut College, the 2005 John King Excellence in Teaching Award, the American Psychological Association's 2015 International Humanitarian Award, and the 2017 Theodore Sarbin Award for distinguished contributions to Psychology. In 2024, the Connecticut Psychological Association awarded Professor Bhatia the prestigious "Distinguished Contributions to Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Psychology."

In 2006, Professor Bhatia received the Sigmund Koch Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology from the Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology. In 2016, he was honored with the Center of Comparative Studies for Race and Ethnicity 10-Year Anniversary Legacy Award, which recognizes Connecticut College faculty and staff committed to promoting equity, justice, and race consciousness. Additionally, Professor Bhatia received the Martin Luther King Jr. Faculty Award in 2009, a recognition for a Connecticut College faculty member who embodies Dr. King’s legacy through their commitment to social justice and service to underrepresented communities, both on campus and in the New London area.

In 2011, Campus Compact named Professor Bhatia one of four runners-up for the Thomas Ehrlich Civically Engaged Faculty Award, which honors faculty who enhance students’ civic education. Bhatia also received a Community Service Award from the Connecticut Department of Higher Education in 2007. Additionally, in 2001, the Unity House students awarded Professor Bhatia the Tyrone Ferdnance Award for outstanding teaching and community involvement service.

In 2006, Professor started a non-profit organization, Friends of Shelter Associates (FSA) - a chapter of the leading organization Shelter Associates, that focuses on providing individual toilets in urban Indian slums and creating awareness about the physical and psychological suffering that families have to endure when they have to defecate in streets, bushes, or open gutters. Using his knowledge of qualitative and ethnographic methods, Sunil Bhatia has formed alliances with over a dozen community partners and NGOs in the U.S. and his native city of Pune, India, to provide the urban poor with access to clean sanitation and private toilets. He has brought a taboo subject — open defecation— into the spotlight to show how a lack of sanitation is connected to psychological constructs of privacy, dignity, humiliation, and safety.