About Me — Brett Pelham
My grandfather was illiterate. He signed his name with the letter X. My grandmother was one of 17 children (I’m one of seven). My loving parents were high school dropouts, and I grew up dirt poor, in rural northwest Georgia. Violence was everywhere. But I was a mediocre fighter. So, instead of learning to be a better fighter, I fought to be a better learner.
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My loving mom always encouraged me to learn. But it was really my first-grade teacher, Louise Boyd, who taught me to adore learning. This is why, as a middle aged man, I still spend a lot of my free time studying everything from Spanish and art to astronomy and human evolution. It is why I have lived all over the United States, from Florida, Georgia, Texas, and California, to New York, Washington, DC, and my current home in Maryland.
My fascination with learning and science eventually got me into Berry College in Rome, Georgia. Then it got me into a PhD program in social psychology at UT Austin. Today, I’m a psychological scientist who teaches at Montgomery College, MD. But I’ve never forgotten the harsh stings of hunger, sickness, and stigma. This is why I study poverty, racism, gender, and social inequality. I want the worlds of immigrants, people of color, and sexual minorities to be as full of opportunity and acceptance as the worlds of those whose privilege was built on the backs of the less fortunate. In my life, I now have love, security, and freedom. I want all of those things for everyone on planet earth.
