The Woodrow Wilson School will host a panel discussion titled "How you see me," at 4:30 p.m. on Monday, April 26, in Bowl 016, Robertson Hall, on the Princeton University campus. The discussion is being held in conjunction with an exhibit in the Bernstein gallery by the same name, which features art and poetry by HomeFront artists. The exhibit will run from April 10 through June 25. A public reception will follow the talk in the gallery.

Panel participants will include Amy Cuddy, Assistant Professor in the Negotiation, Organizations & Markets Unit at Harvard Business School; Connie Mercer, Executive Director of HomeFront, a non-profit agency providing services for the poor and homeless in Mercer County, NJ; and Stacey  Sinclair, an Associate Professor of Psychology & African American Studies at Princeton University. Stanley Katz, Lecturer with rank of Professor of Public and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School and Director of the Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies, will moderate the panel.

Cuddy studies the origins and outcomes of how we perceive and are influenced by other people, investigating the roles of variables such as culture, emotions, nonverbal behaviors, and psychophysiological indicators. Much of her work focuses on social categories (e.g., Asian Americans, elderly people, Latinos, working mothers) – how they are judged by others and by their own members (i.e., stereotyping), and how these judgments set the tone and content of social interactions (i.e., prejudice and discrimination). Cuddy and her collaborators have developed a substantial body of research that focuses on judgments of other people and groups along two core trait dimensions, warmth and competence, which shape and motivate our social emotions, intentions, and behaviors. In 2008, she received the Alexander Early Career Award from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.

Stanley Katz is president emeritus of the American Council of Learned Societies. His recent research focuses upon the relationship of civil society and constitutionalism to democracy, and upon the relationship of the United States to the international human rights regime. He is also a commentator on higher education policy. Formerly Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor of the History of American Law and Liberty at Princeton, Katz is a scholar of American legal and constitutional history, and on philanthropy and non-profit institutions. He is the editor of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise History of the Supreme Court of the United States. He has served as president of the Organization of American Historians and the American Society for Legal History and as vice president of the Research Division of the American Historical Association. He currently serves as chair of the American Council of Learned Societies/Social Science Research Council Working Group on Cuba. Katz is a member of the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, the American Antiquarian Society, the American Philosophical Society; a fellow of the American Society for Legal History, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Society of American Historians; a corresponding member of the Massachusetts Historical Society and an academico correspondiente of the Cuban Academy of Sciences.

Mercer is the Founder and Executive Director of HomeFront, a non-profit social service agency that helps homeless families secure permanent housing and become - and remain - independent, while ameliorating the immediate pain and stress of homelessness for parents and children.  She has also founded The Mercer Group, a firm for social service consulting and executive recruiting; established large out-patient treatment center for abused children at Mt. Sinai Medical Center; developed and evaluated training programs for child welfare staff in three states; worked with NJ DYFS to devise new rate-setting structure for residential care program; and developed a computer-based referral system.  Connie served as the Deputy Director of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services from 1984 to 1988 in which she was responsible for Program Operations and Policy planning.

Stacey Sinclair’s research examines how participating in different interpersonal interactions shapes self-understanding and evaluations of others, with a focus on outcomes related to ethnic and gender stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination. Her work suggests interpersonal interactions are a vehicle by which cultural phenomena (e.g., stereotypes, prejudice) become individual thought.  Prior to joining Princeton in 2008, Sinclair was an Associate Professor in the Psychology Department at the University of Virginia and a Visiting Scholar at UCLA.

This event is sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.  It is free and open to the public.