Mahzarin R. Banaji is one of the authors of Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People. She grew up in the city of Secunderabad, India, earning a bachelor’s degree from Nizam College and a master’s degree in psychology from Osmania University in Hyderabad. In 1986, Banaji received her PhD from Ohio State University and began teaching psychology at Yale University. She taught at Yale until 2001 before moving on to Harvard University, where she currently teaches as the Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics. Her research focuses on implicit social cognition as well as attitudes, social development, and stereotypes.

Banaji has received many prestigious appointments and awards during her career, including the Carol and Ed Diener Award for Outstanding Contributions to Social Psychology, the Guggenheim Fellowship, and the APA Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology. She has also been elected a fellow of several organizations, including the Society for Experimental Psychologists, the Society for Experimental Social Psychology, the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has served as associate editor of Psychological Review and the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology and coedited Essays in Social Psychology for Psychology Press.