Derald Wing Sue

Derald Wing Sue is an American professor of counseling psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University. A scholar of multiculturalism, race, and racism, he has authored 24 books, the most recent published in 2026, and more than 200 scholarly publications, including Counseling the Culturally Diverse: Theory and Practice, Overcoming our Racism, and Understanding Abnormal Behavior and popularized the concept of the microaggression.

Described as "without doubt the most influential multicultural scholar in the United States," his research has been cited more than 83,000 times on Google Scholar.

Personal life

Derald Wing Sue was born in Portland, Oregon, into a Chinese American family. His family lived in a middle class, predominantly white neighborhood, with his parents, four brothers and one sister. He remembers being teased due to his ethnicity during his early childhood. The discrimination and prejudice made him feel like an outcast, and he would often turn to his brothers for support. He attributes these early racist experiences as motivation for his professional interest in racism and anti-racism.

Sue and his brothers would often discuss what it meant to be Chinese living in America, talking about the hostility of an invalidating society and its harmful consequences on their self- esteem and standard of living. Although the prejudice had a negative effect on Sue's self-image, it increased his interest in multiculturalism.