Exploring Identity, Culture, and Family Across Borders
Dr. Hema Ganapathy-Coleman is a developmental and cultural psychologist whose interdisciplinary scholarship spans psychology, anthropology, diaspora studies, and South Asian humanities. Her research examines how culture shapes human development across the lifespan, with particular attention to family dynamics, identity formation, and the transmission of cultural values primarily among Indian immigrants in the USA and Canada, and more recently Pakistani immigrants in Canada. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto Mississauga and serves as Director of the Centre for South Asian Critical Humanities, bringing psychological insights to bear on complex questions of migration, belonging, and transnational identity.
Research Focus
Her work centers on understanding human development within cultural contexts, particularly how families navigate identity, values, and belonging across transnational spaces. Grounded in developmental psychology but drawing from anthropology, sociology, and humanities scholarship, her research employs qualitative, particularly ethnographic approaches to explore the cultural psychology of immigration, cultural development and parenting, intercultural relationships, and identity development in transnational contexts.
Current Research
Dr. Ganapathy-Coleman is currently investigating everyday life and meaning-making in the Indian diaspora in the Peel region of the Greater Toronto Area, intercaste and interreligious relationships among Indian immigrants, and educational beliefs among Hindu and Muslim parents in Gujarat, India.
