Sheena Iyengar place of birth Toronto
Early life and education
Iyengar was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.: xi   Her parents were  immigrants from Delhi, India.: xi–xii   As a child, she was diagnosed with a rare form of retinitis pigmentosa,: xii  an inherited disease of retinal degeneration. By the age of nine, she could no longer read.  By the age of sixteen, she was completely blind, although able to perceive light.: xii   She remains blind as an adult.Iyengar's father died of a heart attack when she was thirty.: xii–xiii   This change in family circumstances, and Iyengar's loss of vision, prompted Iyengar's mother to steer her towards higher education and self-sufficiency, saying to Iyengar:  "I don't want to hear about men or boys, you've got to stand on your own two feet."In 1992, she graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.S. in economics from the Wharton School and a B.A. in psychology from the College of Arts and Sciences.  She then earned her Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Stanford University in 1997.For her dissertation "Choice and its Discontents," Iyengar received the Best Dissertation Award for 1998 from the Society of Experimental Social Psychology.
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