Daniel R
- Research Program Mentor
PhD candidate at Columbia University
Expertise
Judgement and Decision Making, Consumer Psychology, Prosocial Behavior, Product Development, User Experience, Human Centered Product Design, Mechanical Engineering
Bio
Hi there, I'm a manufacturing and design engineer turned consumer behavior and decision making researcher. I've always been fascinated with how things work. An interest in the technical side of products led me to study product development and work in consumer products as a mechanical engineer and program manager for 5 years. In my industry career I often worked on user experience focused projects in a new product development or research setting, primarily within the automotive interiors space. Since leaving the automotive industry in 2020 I've pivoted to a business and psychology research focus and am pursuing a PhD in consumer behavior within the Marketing Department at Columbia Business School. I'm interested in how people make decisions and how the context and framing of the decision settings, dictated by firms, governments or other bodies lead to slightly different decisions. From my days working as a program manager, I'm also interested in how people work to accomplish goals.Project ideas
Why does it seem like everyone wears our school colors on Mondays after a football win?
In this project you will learn how to conduct research into your proposed subject of interest. You will start with fact finding: literature reviews and preliminary data gathering. You will learn about different research methods and ways to test out your hypothesis. We will follow that up with conducting basic analyses to prove or disprove your hypothesis.
What are the most important features to customers when buying a car?
This project will take you through the steps to evaluate the car buying experience and formulate a hierarchy of car purchasing priorities. You will start with fact finding: literature reviews and preliminary data gathering. You will learn about different research methods applicable to your question of interest and basic data analyses to provide insight and conclusions.
What makes people happy and/or healthy?
Why do some people meditate but others don't? Exercise? Floss? How do consumer preferences, goals and motivations dictate their product and activity choices and how do they define what it means to be "healthy"? We can use a mix of qualitative and experimental methods to better understand meaning and choice in the health domain.