Heather Maiirhe Caruso
Anderson School of Management
Associate Dean, Inclusive Excellence
Point of Contact
Heather Maiirhe Caruso
Associate Dean, Inclusive Excellence; Faculty Co-Director, Inclusive Ethics Initiative; Adjunct Associate Professor of Management and Organizations and Behavioral Decision Making
Pronouns: she/her
heather.caruso@anderson.ucla.edu
Bio:
Heather Maiirhe Caruso (HEH-thur MY-ee-ray kah-ROO-soh) joined UCLA Anderson in 2018 and serves as a faculty member, Associate Dean for Inclusive Excellence, and Faculty Co-Director of the Inclusive Ethics Initiative. A behavioral scientist and former Silicon Valley executive, her work centers on understanding and helping people to skillfully navigate the organizational and leadership challenges that call for inclusive excellence. Through research, teaching, and consulting, she aims to build bridges between science and practice that help people engage difference in more effective and enjoyable ways, advancing what she describes as UCLA’s distinctive opportunity to foster inclusive excellence.
Dialogue Experience/Expertise:
Heather Maiirhe Caruso advances dialogue at UCLA Anderson through her leadership of the Inclusive Ethics Initiative (IEI) and its flagship skill development workshop series: Engage with Courage, Humility, and Openness (ECHO). IEI bridges behavioral science and practice to help individuals and organizations manage—with rigor and care—the ethical tensions that hinder constructive engagement with difference and disagreement. The ECHO workshop series recognizes that while people are often urged to “get comfortable with the uncomfortable” to engage constructively with difference, resources that help a person to actually develop that comfort can be hard to find. Blending behavioral science insights with adapted theatrical improvisation exercises, the highly interactive ECHO series strengthens participants’ everyday skill set for engaging constructively across differences — whether rooted in professional background, identity, experience, or worldview.
