Maneeza Dawood, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral associate on the Adolescent Initiatives Team at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. She received her Ph.D. in Psychology from Columbia University. Her research broadly studies insider and outsider dynamics and the ways in which people feel included or excluded in society. She focuses on the social environments through which adolescents build some of the most powerful resources in their lives - their social connections - and how social connections can trigger a cascade of positive psychological outcomes, such as strengthened identity, increased civic engagement, and improved academic performance.

She has also worked in industry, studying the efficacy of Edtech programming on social, emotional, and academic learning outcomes. Prior to beginning her doctorate, she spent 10 years developing and organizing an identity-based after-school program designed to build self-efficacy, civic engagement, and social connectedness among underrepresented youth.