Sandra Matz

Sandra Matz takes a Big Data approach to studying human behavior in a variety of business-related domains. She combines methodologies from psychology and computer science – including machine learning, experimental designs, online surveys, and field studies – to explore the relationships between people’s psychological characteristics (e.g. their personality) and the digital footprints they leave with every step they take in the digital environment (e.g. their Facebook Likes or their credit card transactions). More specifically, her research focuses on the following three questions: (1) What can people’s digital footprints tell us about their socio-psychological characteristics? (2) What can people’s digital footprints tell us about the real-life consequences of their unique psychological characteristics? (3) How can insights extracted from people’s digital footprints help individuals and businesses make better decisions?

Sandra Matz works with business around the world and is a frequent keynote speaker for established businesses and institutions, including Microsoft, Trivago, or the European Commission. She was named one of the DataIQ’s 100 most influential people in data-driven marketing in 2015 and 2016, and was recognized as one of the 30 top thinkers under 30 by the Pacific Standard Magazine. Her work has been published top-tier journals such as Psychological Science and the American Psychologist, and has attracted worldwide media attention from outlets like the Independent, the BBC, CNBC, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and the World Economic Forum.

Areas of Expertise

• Decision Making / Decision Sciences, Negotiations

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) University of Cambridge (2013 — 2016)
• Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg im Breisgau (2009 — 2013)
• One-year visiting programme University of Cambridge (2011 — 2012)

Companies

• Associate Professor of Management Columbia Business School (2020)
• Assistant Professor Of Management Columbia Business School (2017 — 2020)
• Computational Social Scientist / Psychometrician University of Cambridge (2014 — 2017)
• Lab Associate Disney Research (2015 — 2015)
• Research Assistant and Project Manager Freiburg Institute (2012 — 2013)
• Research Assistant University of Freiburg (2010 — 2011)
• Internship Novartis (2011 — 2011)

Books

• Matz. S. C. (in press). The Psychology of Technology: Social science Research in the Age of Big Data. APA.