Nalini Ambady (March 20, 1959 – October 28, 2013) was an Indian-American social psychologist and a leading expert on nonverbal behavior and interpersonal perception.

She earned her Ph.D. in social psychology from Harvard University in 1991 under the guidance of Robert Rosenthal, with whom she researched thin slice judgments.

SPARQ officially opened its doors in 2014 after Ambady died, but she was active in its formation whilst ill with leukemia until her death.

[10] The main goal of SPARQ is to improve society by taking knowledge from the field of social psychology directly to policymakers, teachers and other impactful societal figures.

SPARQ is an attempt to address the gap between psychology and the real world and aims to build a bridge between the hands-on experiences of practitioners in the field, and the scientific findings of the lab.

[14][15] Her plight sparked a global effort to increase participation in bone marrow registries among South Asian ethnic groups.