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 Sheena
S. Iyengar has been a professor in the Management
Division of Columbia
University Business
School since 1998, and
also holds an adjunct appointment in the Psychology
Department. She has
previously taught Leading and Managing in Organizations, Entrepreneurial
Creativity, Managerial Decision-Making, and (as a visiting professor at
London Business School) Developing Effective Managers and Organisations, as well as doctoral seminars in
organization behavior and research methods. She was recently selected
by the Columbia University’s President’s Office to be an
instructor at the World Economics Forum in Geneva, Switzerland.
Professor Iyengar received a dual degree from the University
of Pennsylvania in 1992,
consisting of a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School of Business and a
B.A. in psychology with a minor in English from the College of Arts
and Sciences. In 1997 she completed her Ph.D. in social psychology
from Stanford
University. Her
dissertation, entitled “Choice and its Discontents,” received
the prestigious Best Dissertation Award for 1998 from the Society of
Experimental Social Psychology. She received the Presidential Early
Career Award from the National Science Foundation in 2001, and in 2005 was
invited to serve as a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. She was recently selected as a
TIAA-CREF Institute Fellow and as an Academic Member of the Behavioral
Finance (BeFi) Forum. Throughout her
career, her research has not only appeared in many respected academic
journals but is also regularly cited in the media, including periodicals
such as Fortune and Time magazines, the New York Times
and the Wall Street Journal, on National Public Radio, and in
popular books including Blink by Malcolm Gladwell and The Paradox
of Choice by Barry Schwartz.
One of the leading experts
on the psychology of choice, Professor Iyengar is interested in how the
ideals of choice contrast with the realities faced by choosers. One
area of particular interest is the role of choice in people’s
business lives. Supported by Citigroup, she has examined how choice
functions as an incentive in the workplace, affecting employees’ job
satisfaction and physical health. Also, in collaborations with
Vanguard, AllianceBernstein, ING, AXA, AARP, and
the National Endowment for Financial Education she has researched how the
choice of funds in retirement savings plans affects behavioral patterns
such as participation rate and asset allocation. Another area of
Professor Iyengar’s interest is the role of
choice in people’s personal lives. Her research has explored
the assortment of options offered to consumers in activities such as
wine-tasting and speed-dating and in venues such as manicure salons,
magazine aisles, grocery stores, and chocolate shops with the support of
companies including AOL/Time Warner and Godiva.
She has studied the role of choice in car dealerships and bespoke suit
tailors, Communist and post-Communist countries, career decisions, and
medical treatments. In summary, the overarching theme of Professor Iyengar’s research is the importance of choice in
all aspects of people’s lives, from the seemingly mundane to the most
consequential.
Currently, Sheena S. Iyengar
is writing her first book, an exploration of the mysteries of choice in
everyday life, to be published by Twelve, an imprint of Hatchette
Book Group. “Sheena Iyengar’s
research on personal choice is groundbreaking and fascinating in
itself,” said Twelve publisher Jonathan Karp, “but what’s
most exciting about this project is the depth of her insight as a writer.
Anyone who wants to understand why we make the choices we do will
want to read this book.”
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