Nagapriya Vaidyanathan

Nagapriya Vaidyanathan is a doctoral candidate in Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business, specializing in Management. Her research explores how differences across and within people shape workplace relationships, focusing on social identities such as autism and gender and how they affect perception, communication, and relating. She blends quantitative and qualitative methods, maintaining an active research pipeline with first-author papers under review at the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Business and Psychology, and Journal of Management. Her research has been supported by LeBow’s Innovation and Social Impact Microgrants, and she recently received the Dean’s Course Release Award for Behavioral Research. Her dissertation examines how neurotypical leaders can best serve as allies to autistic employees, addressing how supervisor allyship behaviors enable autistic employees’ self-driven career advancement and social change behaviors. As an instructor, Nagapriya fosters an inclusive, innovative, and feedback-focused learning environment. She also engages actively in academic service through reviewing and recently received the Best Reviewer Award from the OB Division of the Academy of Management.