Dr. Harpreet Mangat is Executive Director of Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative(link is external) (BIMI) at the University of California, Berkeley. She has held various leadership positions on campus at the Goldman School of Public Policy, the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, and the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues. She was also a Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholar at Cal. Prior to coming to the United States, Harpreet was a professor in the department of Political Science at Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar, Punjab. In India, she conducted research on the Indo-Pakistan border, diaspora nationalism and gender.
In her role at BIMI, she manages grants awarded by federal agencies (NSF(link is external)+NIH(link is external)), private foundations, and campus funders. She also leads a research program called BIMI Cultures and Communities project(link is external) which focuses on understanding belonging for diasporic communities.
Harpreet is an energetic advocate for communities of color at Cal. She was Professional Development co-chair of Asian Pacific American Systemwide Alliance (APASA) from 2021-22 and a program and planning committee member of the largest staff professional development conference at UC, Next Opportunity at Work (NOW). She is member of Chancellor's advisory committee on the state of women issues (CACSW) on campus and a part of UCWI (University of California Women's Initiative) cohort for 2022. She was also awarded the Sunny Low award in 2022. This award is given to a staff member at Cal who has demonstrated outstanding service and commitment to the campus community. This is awarded to a person who has made a positive impact on the AAPI community in the areas of service, mentorship, and equity & inclusion.