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Nilanjana Dasgupta bags Axiom gold for her debut book
Other Indian-American authors in this year’s awards included Bidhan L. Parmar, who received bronze in Business Ethics and Ruchika T. Malhotra, who won silver in Networking.
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Malvika Choudhary - Wed, 01, Apr 2026
- 17:42 EDT
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Nilanjana Dasgupta/ Book's cover / changethewallpaper.com
Indian American author Nilanjana Dasgupta was awarded a gold medal at the 2026 Axiom Business Book Awards for her debut book ‘Change the Wallpaper: Transforming Cultural Patterns to Build More Just Communities.’
Dasgupta’s book, published by Yale University Press, focuses on how inequality is shaped not only by individual attitudes or beliefs, but also by the culture embedded in everyday environments such as schools, workplaces, universities, and neighborhoods.
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According to the book’s description, Change the Wallpaper uses the metaphor of “wallpaper” to explain the hidden but powerful features of local culture, including social norms, routines, relationships, and physical spaces, that influence how people behave and what opportunities they receive.
The book argues that such factors, often overlooked in public conversations about inequality, can accumulate over time to produce unequal outcomes.
The work also examines why some diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts have yielded limited results and why simply increasing awareness about implicit bias does not always lead to meaningful behavioral or structural change.
Instead, the book proposes that collective, place-based action can gradually reshape local culture and create more durable forms of justice and opportunity.
Dasgupta is a provost professor of psychology and founding director of the Institute of Diversity Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is known for her work in social psychology, particularly on implicit bias, stereotyping, and diversity science, and for applying research findings to real-world institutional and organizational settings.
Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health and has been featured in major media outlets including The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, Wired, Slate, PBS NewsHour, ABC News, and Scientific American Mind.
Dasgupta has also received several honors for her academic and applied research, including the Hidden Bias Research Prize from the Kapor Foundation, the Application of Personality and Social Psychology Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and the Chancellor’s Medal for Outstanding Accomplishments in Research and Creative Activity.
She earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology and neuroscience from Smith College and her master’s degree and PhD in social psychology from Yale University.
The 2026 Axiom Business Book Awards are administered by Jenkins Group, a Michigan-based publishing company that has run the awards since 2007.
Other Indian-origin authors recognized in this year’s awards included Bidhan L. Parmar, who received bronze in Business Ethics for Radical Doubt: Turning Uncertainty into Surefire Success, and Ruchika T. Malhotra, who won silver in Networking for Uncompete: Rejecting Competition to Unlock Success.
The awards, announced March 25, drew more than 600 entries from 31 countries, according to organizers. The annual awards recognize books across business-related categories, including leadership, entrepreneurship, innovation, finance, and workplace culture.
Discover more at New India Abroad.
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