Dr. Kate Ratliff always knew she wanted to be an educator. The only questions were what and who. Although she began college with a major in special education, she quickly moved her attention to psychology and sociology following a course on race relations. In 2003, she graduated from Belmont University (Nashville, TN) and began a doctoral program in social psychology at the University of Virginia. That summer she adopted a puppy, Blackjack, who still lives with her here in Gainesville (age 14 years!).
During her time at UVA, Dr. Ratliff worked to become an expert in implicit social cognition. In the fall of 2008, when (soon-to-be) Dr. Ratliff was on the job market, banks were collapsing and entire states were having hiring freezes. Rather than being deterred from her goal, she changed her search to a global one and obtained a position as an Assistant Professor of Social Psychology at Tilburg University in The Netherlands. She spent three very productive years there, publishing first-author papers in leading journals such as Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, and Perspectives on Psychological Science. She supervised dozens of Bachelor’s and Master’s level theses while at Tilburg and also won a University-level teaching award (“Best Class”) for her undergraduate course on Attitudes and Social Cognition.
Although working in Europe had a lot of upsides, it was also a lot different from traveling to Europe and felt very far away from friends and family. Her years there have given her a more global perspective on our field that continues to be a significant asset to her research. However, it felt like time to move back to the United States and, in 2012, Dr. Ratliff accepted her current position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Florida. After three winters in northern Europe, Gainesville was a breath of warm air (the average Gainesville January is as warm as the average Dutch July!). Dr. Ratliff has settled into her new setting quite well. In less than 5 years here, she has published more than 20 papers and set up a well-functioning research lab where she currently supervises five graduate students. She is very proud of the work accomplished by her students so far and looks forward to seeing the first group make their way out into the world. In addition to her mentoring role with her graduate students, Dr. Ratliff has really enjoyed teaching undergraduate students at UF. Indeed, the high ability level of UF students came as a welcome surprise when she arrived here. One of her favorite courses to teach has been The Psychology of Stereotypes and Prejudice, for which she received an award from the UF Law School Center for Race and Race Relations to develop. It is a difficult reality that the course is so relevant to today’s world, and every semester—indeed every week— she brings the content up to date. In addition to teaching and research, Dr. Ratliff is highly engaged in the field more broadly. She is currently in the final year of a three-year stint as co-organizer of the Attitudes pre-conference at the annual meeting.
In addition to teaching and research, Dr. Ratliff is highly engaged in the field more broadly. She is currently in the final year of a three-year stint as co-organizer of the Attitudes pre-conference at the annual meeting for the Society of Personality and Social Psychology which is the primary meeting for social psychologists. In addition, she is an Associate Editor at Social Psychological and Personality Science, which is the type of position ordinarily reserved for tenured professors. Arguably her biggest role is that of Executive Director of Project Implicit, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to educate the public about implicit bias and to develop methodological tools to uncover hidden biases. Last year, the Project Implicit website, where participants can test their own implicit biases, had in the ballpark of 5 million visitors! Dr. Ratliff coordinates a team of ten researchers and computer scientists who keep the website running. Through her work at Project Implicit, she also works with organizations to set and meet goals regarding diversity and inclusion, leadership, biases in decision-making, and barriers to innovation. In the past few years she has spoken about implicit bias at large banks (e.g., Bank of America/Merryll Lynch, the World Bank), Universities (e.g., Dartmouth, MIT), legal groups (e.g., The Texas Center for the Judiciary), and nonprofit organizations (e.g., Leadership Pittsburgh, Seminole County Children’s Cabinet). In January, she was one of two keynote speakers at the Provost’s Symposium here at UF.
In sum, Dr. Ratliff stays busy. Fortunately, one of the things she learned from her time in Europe was how to work in a highly focused manner for a set period of time every day and then stop and set her work down. This allows her to fully enjoy her time at home with her husband (Colin Smith, who is also a faculty member in the Department of Psychology), two dogs (Blackjack and Speedy), and her two-year-old daughter (Cora). So far, Gainesville feels like a great place to raise a family, full of parks, nature, and even a kid-friendly brewery. She is also an avid reader who averages about a novel every other week. She is always happy to make book recommendations to anyone interested!