William T. L. Cox

Dr. William Taylor Laimaka Cox is a scientist-practitioner with 20 years of experience in the realm of diversity and inclusion. His work all serves the ultimate goal of understanding and reducing the injustice, human suffering, and disparities that arise from stereotyping and prejudice. A key theme throughout his scientific research is understanding fundamental processes at play in stereotyping and bias, especially how neural, cognitive, and cultural processes lead to the perpetuation of stereotypes and biases. His work also serves as a bridge between basic, fundamental science and translational, applied intervention work: he leverages advances in basic knowledge about stereotype perpetuation to develop, test, and refine evidence-based interventions, most especially the bias habit-breaking training, which has been shown to be highly effective at creating lasting, meaningful changes related to bias and diversity.

Dr. Cox is the Founder/CEO of Inequity Agents of Change, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to widespread dissemination of evidence-based methods to create lasting, meaningful change related to diversity and inclusion. They provide training and resources to individuals and organizations around the world, harnessing the science of cognitive-behavioral change to empower people as agents of change to reduce bias, create inclusion, and promote equity. He is also one of two co-hosts of Diverse Joy, a podcast devoted to "infusing science, practicality, and most of all, joy, into discussions about diversity."

Cox completed his PhD in social psychology in 2015 at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. He and his former PhD adviser, Devine, have conducted research on the cognitive structure of stereotypes, demonstrating that some stereotypes primarily serve as categorization cues, especially those stereotypes related to social groups with non-visible defining features, like gay men. Whereas other researchers have argued that people have an accurate "gaydar" ability that enables people to visually identify whether someone is gay or straight, Cox and his colleagues argued that "gaydar" is simply an alternate label for using stereotypes to infer orientation (e.g., inferring that fashionable men are gay), and thereby serves the function of a legitimizing myth to reduce the normative stigma associated with stereotyping. The researchers point out that past work arguing that people have accurate "gaydar" falls prey to the false positive paradox (see also the base rate fallacy), because the alleged accuracy discounts the very low base rate of LGB people in real populations, resulting in a scenario where the "accuracy" of gaydar reported in lab studies translates to high levels of inaccuracy in the real world.

Dr. Cox is perhaps best known for his work in the development, testing, and dissemination of the bias habit-breaking training, an evidence-based diversity intervention. His scientific research with the bias habit-breaking training was recognized by National Institute of General Medical Sciences at NIH in the form of a Maximizing Investigator’s Research Award. In Business magazine named Dr. Cox one of Madison, WI’s “Forty Under 40” Class of 2024. He and his work have been featured several times on NPR and WPR, and has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, The Atlantic, and other major outlets.