Jennifer Wessel

Bio

Jennifer L. Wessel (she/her) is an Associate Professor of Psychology. She is an organizational psychologist, receiving her PhD from Michigan State University in 2012.
Dr. Wessel’s research examines issues of diversity in the workplace, with a long-term goal of producing quality research that can improve understanding of the experiences of stigmatized individuals in the workplace and provide individuals from diverse backgrounds with tools to thrive personally and professionally at work.

Dr. Wessel research primarily focuses on the experiences of employees with stigmatized identities - how they discuss or manage their identities at work, how they perceive the workplace, and how they are perceived and treated by others at work. Recent work focuses on interventions aimed at including autistic individuals in academic and work settings, as well as how DEI as a topic itself is viewed and approached in the academy (e.g., by faculty, by students) 
Dr. Wessel's research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Society for Human Resource Management, the Social Science Research Council, the Hewlett Foundation, and the Democracy Fund. She was awarded UMD's Research and Scholarship Award (2018) and the Psychology Department's Outstanding Faculty Research Mentor Award (2018). More information can be found at her professional website: jen-wessel-phd.com