Kecia M. Thomas

Kecia M. Thomas serves as Dean of the UAB College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Psychology. She is professor emeritus at the University of Georgia where she served as the Senior Associate Dean of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Industrial-Organizational Psychology from 1993-2000.

Dr. Thomas is an expert in the Psychology of Workplace Diversity and has published dozens of peer reviewed articles, book chapters, and 6 edited volumes and 1 solely authored text. She is an elected-Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity and Race and the Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology (SIOP). She was named the first Black woman Fellow in 2009.

Over the last year she has served as a subject matter expert for the National Academies of Science, the Carnegie Institute for Science, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Her research on the Pet to Threat work experience has been covered by outlets such as Forbes and the New Yorker as well as Brene Brown’s Dare to Lead podcast, and the popular Therapy for Black Girls podcast.

She earned her BA in Psychology and Spanish from Bucknell University and her MS and PhD in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from The Pennsylvania State University.