Virginia Film Festival

Beverly Adams

Former Assistant Dean, UVA College of Arts and Sciences; Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, UVA

Beverly Colwell Adams is an Assistant Dean, UVA College of Arts and Sciences, and Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, UVA. Originally from Youngstown, Ohio, she earned a BA in Psychology from Spelman College (Atlanta, GA), and MS (Developmental Psychology) and PhD (Cognitive Psychology–Psycholinguistics) from the University of Pittsburgh. She studied language processing within the framework of the psychology of reading as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst, MA) and The NIAS:  The Netherlands Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences (Wassenaar and Leiden, Holland, The Netherlands).  She and her daughter, Jasmine, moved to Charlottesville, after her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her research interests include the examination of microaggressions as one of the contributing variables to the decline of physical and mental health in strong black women. Beverly holds leadership and membership roles in the Black Faculty and Staff-Employee Resources Group (a founding member), Virginia Social Sciences Association (VSSA), Charlottesville Live Arts, Colonnade Club (UVA) Board of Governors, City of Promise, The Women’s Initiative, African American Authors Book Club, Charlottesville Chapter of The Links, Inc., and Charlottesville Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.