ÖZGE SAVAS

Özge Savaş is a critical and applied social psychologist. She works with historically and systemically disadvantaged and marginalized individuals and communities, combining decolonial and intersectional feminist theories in explaining how systems of oppression are maintained. She examines the role of stigma, stereotypes, and prejudice in intergroup conflict.

Biography

Savaş received her Ph.D. in Psychology and Women’s and Gender Studies from the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on understanding how people develop in(ter)dependence and belonging within various social, cultural, and economic systems and across their lifetimes. In answering questions about when, where, and how “people” feel included or excluded and who belongs, she adopts a social justice lens, uses multiple methods, including quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods, and brings the macro (institutional), meso (symbolic), and micro (individual) levels of analyses together. Her research has significant social policy implications and applicability in addressing issues ranging from immigrant rights and humanitarian crises to the widening cultural/political divide and global gender inequality. Savaş was a faculty member at Bennington from Fall 2020-Spring 2024.