Urmitapa Dutta

Urmitapa Dutta serves as Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology within the College of Fine Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Her work centers on critical community psychology and decolonial praxis, with deep engagement in Northeast India and U.S. communities.

Education

• Ph.D. in Clinical Community Psychology, University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
• M.A. in Clinical Psychology, University of Delhi
• B.A. in Psychology, University of Delhi

Dr. Dutta's research interrogates normalized everyday violence (direct, structural, and cultural) through Global South feminist frameworks. Her scholarship develops "everyday peace" interventions, focusing on structural violence, gender-based oppression, and decolonial resistance. She employs critical qualitative methodologies to center marginalized voices, particularly youth and Miya communities in Northeast India, challenging hegemonic knowledge production.

Her publications (2010-2024) reveal consistent focus on decolonizing psychology, with increasing emphasis on epistemic resistance and community-led liberation. Key trends include retheorizing structural violence through postcolonial lenses, developing peace pedagogy frameworks, and documenting Miya poetry as decolonial praxis. The work spans critical ethnography, community-based action, and pedagogical innovation.

Scientific Recognition

• Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence (2015)
• Dr. Martin Luther King Distinguished Service Award (2015)
• Illinois Distinguished Qualitative Dissertation Award (2014)
• Best Dissertation Award in Community Psychology (2013)
• Exemplary Diversity Scholar (2012)

Dr. Dutta secures significant funding for community-engaged research, including National Research Foundation grants on Southern citizenship negotiations and UMass Lowell projects on youth perspectives in Lowell. Her collaborative approach partners with Miya communities to co-create resistance against coloniality, while campus initiatives foster diversity through living-learning communities. Current work emphasizes epistemic justice and centering Global South knowledge producers.

She actively collaborates through the Everyday Peace Project and with Northeast India grassroots organizations, developing community-based frameworks that transform structural violence into liberatory praxis while documenting resistance narratives.