Ankita Nikalje

Ankita Nikalje is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology in the Counseling Psychology program at UW-Milwaukee. She earned her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Purdue University (U.S.A.), her MS in Cross-Cultural Psychology from Brunel University (U.K.), and her BS (Hons.) in Psychology from the University of Melbourne and Bond University (Australia). Dr. Nikalje’s research focuses on the impact of systemic, institutional, interpersonal, and internalized oppression on lived experiences and mental health. She is particularly passionate about issues of within-group discrimination and uplifting the experiences of those who are minoritized within their communities and social/identity groups.

Currently, her research seeks to address the issue of caste/ism and how caste discrimination continues to manifest outside of South Asia. She has theorized Caste Critical Theory (CasteCRIT) and is developing instruments to measure the psychological impact of casteism in the South Asian diaspora. Relatedly, her research also focuses on the impact of colonization, especially as it relates to internalized colonization or Colonial Mentality among South Asians.

Nikalje’s current projects include development and validation of the casteism scale; validation of the Asian American Racism Related Stress Scale – South Asian version; validation of the Colonial Mentality scale – Asian Indian version; qualitative exploration of casteism in academia; cross-cultural investigation of caste is the South Asian diaspora; colorism and anti-Black racism among South Asians.