About Lauren C. Mims, PhD

Lauren C. Mims, PhD (she/her) is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Psychology at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Formerly, she was an Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology at Ball State University. Dr. Mims earned her doctorate in Educational Psychology: Applied Developmental Science at the University of Virginia Curry School of Education. Dr. Mims obtained a B.A. in English and Psychology from the University of Virginia in 2012 and a M.A. in Child Development with a concentration in Clinical Developmental Health from Tufts University in 2014. 

Dr. Mims' research focuses on Black children and adolescents’ (extra)ordinary learning and development amidst the normativity of racial discrimination in their everyday life experiences. In concert with students in her lab, the Homeplace Research Collective, she explores how Black children’s interactions within their families, peer groups, communities, and schools may buffer the deleterious impacts of experiencing racism and discrimination by providing Black children with agentic, adaptive coping strategies that, in turn, lead to positive development. The ultimate goal of her research is to “freedom dream” (Kelley, 2002), or envision new worlds, with Black children and their families and then use that brilliance to guide the development of new research, policies, practices, and narratives. 

Dr. Mims was formerly Assistant Director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans during the Obama Administration, where she focused her efforts on student programming, strategic planning and management of projects and priorities including, but not limited to, centering youth voice, supporting federal interagency relationships, the development of research-based publications and handbooks for students, managing the Initiative social media accounts, and engaging with stakeholders through multi-media platforms. She was a member of the White House Council on Women and Girls, the U.S. Department of Education Policy Committee, the U.S. Department of Education Socioeconomic Diversity Working Group, as well as a member of First Lady Michelle Obama's Reach Higher Working Group. Lauren developed and hosted events such as the AfAmWomenLead Student Summit to Support Black Girls, a summit to support African American students with disabilities, and reading parties for youth to share resources, foster creativity and nurture a love of learning.

By drawing insights from developmental psychology, education, and Black studies, her work is impactful, innovative, and inclusive; and her deep, meaningful collaborations with researchers as well as Black youth, adolescents, and their caregivers across the United States underscore this commitment. Her work has been funded externally and internally. Notably, she has been awarded 8 qualitative research grants since 2022, totaling over $3.1 million dollars in awarded research funding alongside faculty across the United States. To learn more about her projects, please visit: https://sites.google.com/nyu.edu/the-homeplace/research .

She has also received multiple awards in research (e.g., the Outstanding Research Award (2022) for research excellence from Ball State University and the Gabriel Carras Research Award (2023) from NYU for promising young scholars), as well as the Outstanding Teaching Award (2021) for teaching excellence from Ball State University. In January 2024 I was awarded the 2024 Diverse Issues in Higher Education Emerging Scholar Award. This awardrecognizes 15 scholars “who represent the very best of the U.S. academy.” 

EDUCATION   
Ph.D. in Educational Psychology: Applied Developmental Science  May 2019 University of Virginia • Curry School of Education

M.A. in Child Development, Concentration: Clinical Developmental Psychology  May 2014 Tufts University • Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study & Human Development  

B.A. in English Language and Literature and Psychology  May 2012 University of Virginia • College of Arts and Sciences  

APPOINTMENT   
Assistant Professor of Developmental Psychology 2022- Present 

New York University Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development • Department of Applied Psychology 

2022-

Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology 2019 - Present

Ball State University • Department of Educational Psychology

Department of Educational Psychology Teachers College, Ball State University

2019 - 2022

President Barack Obama Presidential Appointee Assistant Director, 

White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans  

• Committee Member, White House Council on Women and Girls
• Committee Member, United States Department of Education Policy Committee
• Committee Member, First Lady Michelle Obama’s Reach Higher Initiative
• Committee Member, Educator Diversity and Student Equity Working Group

Events Hosted to Support Women & Girls of Color (selected): 

• AfAmWomenLead Student Summit to Advance Educational Excellence for Black Girls
• White House Summit to Support African American Youth with Disabilities
• One Crazy Summer Reading Party with Marley Dias, Founder of #1000BlackGirlBooks and Marsai Martin, actress on blackish
• Princess Reading Party for girls of color in foster care with Jordan West, Founder of Princess for a Day
• Free Film Screenings of Queen of Katwe, A Ballerina’s Tale, and The Souls of Black Girls, CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap, and STEP: The Movie followed by an educational discussion