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I aspire to use consumer behavior research to help people live better, more fulfilling, and more sustainable lives. I am keenly interested in how consumers’ naïve theories about the world (lay beliefs) and their cultural differences influence what, how, and why they choose to consume and how to leverage these to enhance well-being. My research has been published or is forthcoming in the  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Psychological Science, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and Journal of International Business Studies. 

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Before joining SMU, I was a faculty member at Virginia Tech, USA. Prior to that, I was a post-doctoral fellow at the Columbia Business School, New York. I completed my PhD in Marketing (Consumer Behavior) from Nanyang Business School, Singapore.

 

Before my PhD, I have nine years of corporate experience in consumer products organizations (Unilever and Castrol/BP), in which I held both national-level and global-level marketing roles across multiple developing and developed markets, with responsibility for profit and loss. In my last role, I was responsible for developing new products and global advertising campaigns for the world's largest soap brand, Lux.

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I enjoy distilling and sharing the insights from my research for non-academic audiences. I have written for the Harvard Business Review, Stanford Social Innovation Review, and WARC, among others.   

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I can be reached at shilpamadan@smu.edu.sg

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