Craig R. Fox, Ph.D.

Principal Investigator

I am Professor of Policy at UCLA Anderson School of Management, Professor of Psychology at UCLA, and Co-Director of the UCLA Interdisciplinary Research Group in Behavioral Decision Making.  I joined the UCLA faculty in 2003 after six years at the Fuqua School of Business (Duke University), where I remain an adjunct faculty member.

I earned undergraduate degrees in economics and psychology from the University of California at Berkeley, where I completed my thesis work under the supervision of Daniel Kahneman.  I received an M.A. and Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Stanford University under the supervision of the late Amos Tversky.  I am currently associate editor of Management Science, and on the editorial boards of Organization Behavior and Human Decision Processes and the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making. 

I teach MBA and executive courses in managerial decision-making, negotiation, leadership, strategy, and managerial improvisation as well as Ph.D. courses in decision making.  I have previously taught at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, the Kellogg Graduate School of Management (Northwestern University), Columbia University, Stanford University, and the Australian Graduate School of Management.  In addition, I have been a visiting scholar at New York University, the University of Mannheim, and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Craig's personal website
Craig's CV
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Shlomo Benartzi, Ph.D.

Dr. Shlomo Benartzi's research investigates participant behavior in defined contribution plans. In particular, his current work examines how do individuals make financial decisions in retirement saving plans? In addition, he is developing “behavioral prescriptions” to assist employees make better financial decisions including the Save More Tomorrow™ program.

Dr. Benartzi’s work has been published in the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Finance, the Accounting Review and Management Science. His work been discussed in the Economist, Financial Times, Investor's Business Daily, the Los Angeles Times, Money Magazine, the New York Times, Plan Sponsor, Pensions and Investments, the Wall Street Journal and CNBC. Benartzi served on the ERISA Advisory Council of the U.S. Department of Labor, the Investment Advisory Council of the Alaska State Pension and the advisory board of Morningstar.

Education: Ph.D., M.A., Cornell University, B.A., Tel-Aviv University
Interests: Behavioral finance and individual investors
Teaching Focus: The psychology of investing

Shlomo's Vita and Publications
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Sanjay Sood, Ph.D.

Sanjay Sood specializes in research into marketing management, brand management, advertising and consumer behavior. Some of his most recent topics of study include: the effects of branding strategies and product experience on brand evaluations, competitive anticipation in marketing decision-making, and sensitivity to losses and negative changes. Dr. Sood is an ad-hoc reviewer for Journal of Marketing Research and Journal of Consumer Research.

In 2003, Dr. Sood was honored as the MSI Young Marketing Scholar. Prior to joining the faculty at UCLA Anderson in 2001, Dr. Sood was an assistant professor at Jones Graduate School of Management at Rice University. Along with his Ph.D., he also earned a minor in psychology from Stanford University.

At UCLA Anderson, Dr. Sood teaches the core course in marketing to full-time and fully employed MBA students. He also teaches a doctoral seminar on behavioral research in marketing and in executive education programs. In addition, he serves as assistant director of the Behavioral Research Lab.

Education: Ph.D. Marketing, 1999, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business; MBA, 1992, Northwestern University, Kellogg Graduate School of Management; B.S. Electrical Engineering, 1987 (with honors), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Interests: Marketing management, brand management, advertising and consumer behavior

Recent Publications:

• S. Zhang and S. Sood, “Deep and Surface Cues: Brand Extension Evaluations by Children and Adults,” Journal of Consumer Research, 2002.
• K. Keller and S. Sood, “The Ten Commandments of Global Branding,” Asian Journal of Marketing, 2001.
• S. Bridges, K. Keller and S. Sood, “Communication Strategies for Brand Extensions: Enhancing Perceived Fit by Establishing Explanatory Links,” Journal of Advertising, 2000.
• A. Kirmani, S. Sood and S. Bridges, “The Ownership Effect in Consumer Responses to Brand Line Stretches,” Journal of Marketing, 1999.

Sanjay's personal website
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David Bardolet Urgelles

Besides enjoying life in Southern California, I am also a doctoral student in the Policy area at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. Having been exposed there to research in Strategy as well as in Behavioral Decision Making, I believe that connecting these two fields is an exciting and potentially fruitful task. Thus, I am interested in providing behavioral accounts for key strategic decisions that managers make, such as entry, resource allocation, innovation and mergers.

Specifically, my doctoral dissertation will be centered around biases and heuristics in capital budgeting and other resource allocation decisions.

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Liat Hadar

I am a post-doctoral fellow at the UCLA Anderson. I'm currently working with Prof. Craig Fox on the role of affect in decision processes. I received my B.A. in Behavioral Sciences and my M.A. in Cognitive Psychology from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

My research interests include judgment and decision making under risk and under uncertainty. I focus on identifying the cognitive and the affective factors involved in decision processes, and on de-biasing these processes.

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Claudia Townsend

I am a first year doctoral student of Marketing at the John E. Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA. I received a Bachelor’s degree in 2000 from Brown University where I concentrated in Economics and Psychology. I also has experience working in market research as well as economic consulting for antitrust litigation.

My research interests broadly fall into the domain of consumer judgment and decision-making. In particular, I am interested in framing effects and constructive preferences.

In my spare time I enjoy exploring Los Angeles, live music, running, and learning to surf.

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Alessandro Previtero

I’m a visiting scholar in the Finance Dept. at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. I’m a PhD candidate in Finance at the University of Lecce (Italy). I’ve been affiliated for the past six years to the Bocconi School of Management of Milan (Italy) as a teaching and research assistant.

My research integrates behavioral decision making insights into the classical financial choices (whether the decisions maker is an individual investor, a managers or a board of directors). My current research projects involves: a) asymmetric information and trust in financial markets; b) group decision making and boards of directors; c) gambling in financial markets.

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Aileen Heinberg, M.A.

I am a doctoral student in Psychology at UCLA interested in affective and social factors in judgment and decision making under risk and uncertainty.

I received a B.A. from Columbia University and M.A. from UCLA, both in Psychology.

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Emily Barkley-Levenson

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