Michele Gelfand

Research Statement

Michele Gelfand uses field, experimental, computational, and neuroscience methods to understand the evolution of culture — as well as its multilevel consequences for human groups.

Bio

Gelfand’s work has been published in many scientific outlets such as Science, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Psychological Science, Nature Human Behaviour, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Research in Organizational Behavior, Journal of Applied Psychology, Annual Review of Psychology, American Psychologist, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Current Opinion in Psychology, among others. Her work has been featured in the Washington Post, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, National Public Radio, Voice of America, Fox News, NBC News, ABC News, Harvard Business Review, The Economist, De Standard, among other outlets.

She is the author of Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire the World (Scribner, 2018) and co-editor of Values, Political Action, and Change in the Middle East and the Arab Spring (Oxford University Press, 2017), The Handbook of Conflict and Conflict Management (Taylor & Francis, 2013), and The Handbook of Negotiation and Culture (2004, Stanford University Press). She is the founding co-editor of the Advances in Culture and Psychology Annual Series and the Frontiers of Culture and Psychology series (Oxford University Press). Gelfand is the past president of the International Association for Conflict Management, past division chair of the Conflict Division of the Academy of Management, and past treasurer of the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology. She has received several awards, such as the 2020 Katzell Award from the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, the 2020 Rubin Award from the IACM, the 2020 Best Book Award from the IACM, the 2019 Award for contributions to Cultural Psychology from SPSP, the 2017 Outstanding International Psychologist Award from the American Psychological Association, the 2016 Diener Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and the Annaliese Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

Academic Degrees

PhD in Social and Organizational Psychology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 1996

Awards and Honors

• Elected Member, National Academy of Sciences, 2021
• Katzell Award, Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 2020
• Elected Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2019
• Outstanding Contributions to Cultural Psychology Award, Society for Personality and Social Psychology, 2019
• Board member, Board of Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences, National Academy of Sciences, 2019
• Member-at-Large, Association of Psychological Science, 2019
• Distinguished Scientist-Practitioner Award, Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 2019
• Honorary Fellow, International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology, 2018
• Applied Science Award for Applications of Scientific Principles to the Advancement of International Business, Institute for Cross-Cultural Management, 2018
• Distinguished University Professor, University of Maryland, 2017
• Outstanding International Psychologist Award, American Psychological Association, 2017
• Most Influential Paper Award, Conflict Management Division, Academy of Management, 2017
• Invited Keynote Speaker, Canadian Psychological Association, 2017
• Research Communicator Impact Award, University of Maryland, 2016
• Invited Keynote Speaker, Association for Psychological Science, 2016
• Edward Diener Award for Contributions to Social Psychology, Society for Personality and Social Psychology, 2016
• Keynote Speaker, International Congress of Psychology, Japan, 2016
• Keynote Speaker, Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago, 2016
• Ernest J. McCormick Distinguished Lecturer, Purdue University, 2015
• Keynote Speaker, Emerging Markets Forum, 2014
• William A. Owens Scholarly Achievement Award for best paper published in 2013, Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology, 2014
• Fellow, Academy of Management, 2013
• Keynote Speaker, 2013 International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling, and Prediction, 2013
• Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Prize for best paper published 2011, Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, 2012
• Anneliese Maier Research Award, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, 2011
• Keynote Speaker, International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology, Istanbul, 2011
• Best Paper Award, New Direction in Conflict Management, for Gelfand, Leslie, Keller, & De Dreu, Conflict Management Division, Academy of Management, 2010
• Elected Fellow, Association for Psychological Science, 2010
• Founder and Coeditor, Advances in Culture and Psychology, Oxford University Press, 2010
• President, International Association for Conflict Management, 2009–10
• Distinguished University Scholar-Teacher, University of Maryland, College Park, 2009
• Best Paper Award, New Directions in Conflict Management, for Fehr & Gelfand, Conflict Management Division, Academy of Management, 2009
• Best Published Article of the Year Award, for Gettman & Gelfand (2007) in the Journal of Applied Psychology, International Association for Conflict Management, 2009
• Invited Member, Forecasting Disruptive Technologies Committee, National Academy of Sciences, 2007–2009
• Invited Master Lecture on Culture, American Psychological Association, Boston, 2008
• Best Theoretical Paper Award, 20th Annual Conference of the International Association for Conflict Management, Budapest, 2007
• Visiting Professor, University of Giessen, 2007
• Elected Fellow, American Psychological Association and Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 2007
• Invited Member, Committee on Opportunities in Basic Research in the Behavioral and Social Sciences for the U.S. Military, 2007
• Invited Visiting Professor, University of Giessen, 2007
• Member, Committee on Opportunities in Basic Research in the Behavioral and Social Sciences for the U.S. Military, 2007
• Invited Panelist, Department of Homeland Security and Psychology Roundtable, Washington DC, 2006
• Invited NSF Representative for the Federation of Behavioral, Psychological, and Cognitive Sciences, Capitol Hill Poster Session, Washington DC, 2006
• Distinguished Service Award, Conflict Management Division, Academy of Management, 2005
• Best Published Article of the Year Award, for Gelfand et al. (2002), Journal of Applied Psychology, International Association for Conflict Management, 2004
• Dorothy Harlow Distinguished Paper Award, Gender and Diversity Division, for paper by Raver & Gelfand, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management, Seattle, 2003
• L. L. Cummings Award for Early Career Contributions, Organizational Behavior Division, Academy of Management, Denver, 2002
• Ernest J. McCormick Award for Distinguished Early Career Contributions, Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Toronto, 2002
• Lady Davis Scholarship Recipient, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 2002
• Best Published Article of the Year Award, for Gelfand & Realo (1999), Journal of Applied Psychology, International Association for Conflict Management, 2001
• Honorable Mention, Otto Klineberg Intercultural and International Relations Award, for Gelfand et al. (2001), Journal of Applied Psychology, Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, 2001
• Teaching and Mentorship Award, College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, University of Maryland at College Park, 2000
• Invited Visiting Scholar, The Technion, Haifa, Israel, 2000
• Best Empirical Paper Award, 11th Annual Conference of the International Association of Conflict Management, College Park, MD, 1998
• Diversity Initiative Research Award, University of Maryland at College Park, 1998
• Invited Visiting Scholar, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1997
• University Research Fellowship, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 1994
• Dana Scholars Award for Academic Excellence, Colgate University, 1986, 1988
• Caesar Tedaschi Scholarship Award for Academic Excellence, Colgate University, 1987
• Elected Member, Cosmos Club, Washington DC
• Elected Member, Society for Experimental Social Psychology and Society for Organizational Behavior