About Our Faculty
Psychology Department

About Dr. Alex Borgella

Dr. Alex Borgella joined Fort Lewis College in Fall 2019 as an assistant professor of psychology. He received his Ph.D. in social psychology at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, concentrating on the psychological motivations and consequences of racial stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. Before joining Fort Lewis, he was a visiting assistant professor of psychology at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.

Dr. Borgella’s current research interests involve the following topics:

• How intergroup interactions affect members of stigmatized social groups (e.g., racial minority groups, sexual/gender minority groups).
• How implicit racial biases affect decision-making.
• How members of the same racial group experience stereotyping and prejudice differently depending on their phenotypicality (e.g., how variations in skin tone impact prejudice toward Black and Hispanic Americans).
• How awareness of stereotypes about one’s social group can impact performance in educational and athletic domains (a phenomenon called stereotype threat).

His research has been published in outlets such as The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, The Journal of Social Psychology, The Psychology of Sport and Exercise, and Humor: International Journal of Humor Research. His work has also been covered in popular media outlets like NPR, Gizmodo, VICE, Quartz, Psychology Today, and Fast Company Magazine..

You can find much more information on Dr. Borgella’s current and previous research, publications, presentations, and media coverage on his lab’s website: The Social Perception Experimentation (SPEx) Lab

Dr. Borgella regularly teaches the following courses at FLC:

• PSYC 157 - Introduction to Psychology
• PSYC 301 - Psychological Research Methods
• PSYC 425 - Social Psychology
• PSYC 496 - Senior Research Experience in Psychology
• PSYC 498 - Stereotyping and Prejudice

Find more information about Dr. Borgella on his faculty homepage