Q: Are there conferences where I can learn more about what current consumer neuro research looks like?

Here are a few! Definitely check out the past programs - a great sampling of many different people's research, and a quick way to find papers that might interest you. 

• Society for Neuroeconomics - ranges across a number of subfields and for marketing folks there is often also a consumer neuroscience pre-meeting

• Interdisciplinary Symposium in Decision Neuroscience - more focused on use of neuroscience in business domains and applied neuro. As of 2025, this conference is largely on hiatus, but the linked page has an example of the kind of work we do. 

Q: I'm interested in applying for jobs in the marketing job market. How do I find out about what's available? 

In general, the marketing job market starts with application packets that are usually due in June. Based on these, schools used to invite candidates to first round interviews at the summer AMA conference, but since the COVID-19 pandemic, that process is more dispersed. First round interviews are frequently now on zoom. (And my own institution, UCSD, sometimes doesn't advertise openings until as late as September.) 

 The MarketingPhdJobs site is invaluable for finding schools' job listings and related resources. 

Opinions on how to best tackle the market vary - my two cents that you should make sure to talk to a marketing professor well in advance of preparing to apply, to understand the culture and format of the process. 

Q: How do I find people currently incorporating neuro (or neuro-ish) research in business schools and related settings? 

Here's a few, but there are more every day...  

• Ada Aka: Marketing, Stanford GSB

• Adam Craig: Marketing, University of Kentucky

• Aiqing Ling : Marketing, University College, Dublin

• Amos Nadler : Finance, Ivey Business School

• Angelika Dimoka : Decision and Information Sciences, Bauer, University of Houston

• Bruce Doré: Marketing, Desautels, McGill University

• Camelia Kuhnen : Finance, Kenan-Flanagan, UNC

• Carolyn Yoon : Marketing, Ross School, Michigan

• Cary Frydman : Finance, Marshall, USC

• Center for Neural Decision-Making, Fox School, Temple

  • Crystal Reeck : Marketing

  • Vinod Venkatraman : Marketing

• Dar Meshi : Advertising and Public Relations (Comm), Michigan State University

• Dino Levy : Marketing, Coller School of Management, Tel Aviv University

• Drazen Prelec : Management (Marketing), MIT Sloan School of Management

• Elena Reutskaja : Marketing, IESE Business School

• Eric Johnson : Marketing, Columbia Business School

• Geoffrey Fisher : Marketing, SC Johnson School of Business, Cornell

• Hang Yee Chan: Marketing, King's College London

• Hilke Plassmann : Marketing, INSEAD, France

• John Clithero : Marketing, Lundquist College of Business, University of Oregon

• Lisa Kramer: Finance, Rotman, University of Toronto

• Milica Mormann : Marketing, Cox School of Business, SMU

• Ming Hsu: Marketing, Haas, UC Berkeley

• Moran Cerf : Marketing/Exec Ed, Columbia Business School

• Nicolette Sullivan: Marketing, London School of Economics

• Paul Stillman: Marketing, Questrom School of Business, Boston University

• Rahul Bhui: Marketing, MIT Sloan School of Management

• Remi Daviet: Marketing, Wisconsin School of Business

• Ryan Webb: Marketing, Rotman, University of Toronto

• Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus

  • Ale Smidts : Marketing

  • Maarten Boksem : Marketing

  • Alex Genevsky : Marketing

• Sachin Banker: Marketing, Eccles School, University of Utah

• Sansuk Yoon: Marketing, University of Dayton

• Stephanie Smith, Marketing, Chicago Booth School of Business

• Wharton Neuroscience Initiative, UPenn

  • Elizabeth Johnson: Exec Ed (Marketing)

  • Gidi Nave : Marketing

  • Michael Platt : Marketing 

• Zhihao Zhang, Marketing, Darden, University of Virginia

Q: I’m interested in going in to the field of consumer neuroscience. Do I need to get two PhD's? 

Short answer: Nope.

Long answer: Nope. But take a step back for a moment.  What is your end goal? 

You should do the most straightforward thing that puts you on the path to the outcome you want. If your goal is to have multiple doctoral degrees, then definitely look at what you need to do to get multiple PhDs!  If you want to train up so that you can get a job doing neuro-related or neuro-inspired research with data from real companies… well yes, you can sometimes do that as an academic, but you can also do that at Google or Ipsos or Toyota (yes, Toyota!), so don’t forget to check out your options at those places BEFORE enrolling yourself in 5+ years of scholarship focused on academic publishing. You might need a PhD for some of those jobs, but you might not. And if you do need a PhD, it might not be in the same field you would go for if you were planning on an academic career. 

 If you are an undergraduate student and you want to become a consumer neuro / neuroeconomics professor then look for faculty (in any department!) that do this kind of research. See what the PhD program they’re associated with looks like.  Are you interested in the classes they would ask you to take? Do the other professors in the department also sound interesting? Does the department and/or school appear to support interdisciplinary work?  Do you want to work in a business school? What do you want your day to day research experience to look like - should it be running experiments? Building models? Both? 

We are luckily at a a stage when there are exceptional interdisciplinary faculty in all kinds of departments – in most cases you can study the questions that interest you without having to stitch together multiple degrees.