Elizabeth Tighe

Elizabeth Tighe is a research scientist at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies and the Steinhardt Social Research Institute. She has a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Carnegie-Mellon University and a PhD in Social/Developmental Psychology from Brandeis University.

She has been an instructor at Wellesley College and a visiting assistant professor in psychology at Brown University, where she taught courses in research methods and experimental design & statistics for doctoral students.

Prior to joining the SSRI, she had been a research associate and senior research associate at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management, where she was also an instructor/lecturer for graduate courses in research methods and applied multivariate statistics.

Her research interests are in social identity, particularly religious and ethnic identity and their relationship to civic identity and intergroup relations. In addition to basic research in motivation and attitude structure and change, she has studied community programs as part of a national evaluation of community-based substance abuse reduction programs funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Recent work has included the design and administration of a web-based survey to assess the role of religion in the lives of college students as part of the Jewish Life on American College Campuses: Realities and Possibilities project funded by the Avi Chai Foundation and the Jewish Life Network. In addition, she was co-investigator and co-author of “Jewish Elderly Nazi Victims: A Synthesis of Comparative Information on Hardship and Need in the United States, Israel and the Former Soviet Union” and “Assessment of Methods to Quantify Neediness among Jewish Nazi Victims in re: Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation.”

Currently in her position at the SSRI, she is a co-investigator and project director for a research synthesis of national U.S. surveys that assess religious and Jewish identity.