Mesmin Destin is an assistant professor at Northwestern University in the Department of Psychology and in the School of Education and Social Policy. He is also a fellow of Northwestern’s Institute for Policy Research and a fellow of the Russell Sage Foundation during the 2016–17 academic year. As a faculty member at Northwestern, he directs the Status, Cognition, and Motivation lab group and engages in research that investigates social psychological mechanisms underlying socioeconomic disparities in educational outcomes during adolescence and young adulthood. He uses laboratory and field experiments to identify factors that influence how young people come to see themselves and pursue their futures. At the university level, he examines how subtle social experiences and institutional messaging shape the motivation and educational trajectories of low socioeconomic status and first-generation college students.
