J.M. (Jeff) Lees, Dr

Please find a current version of my full academic CV here.

Jeff Lees is a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Resource Management & Organizational Behavior at the Faculty of Economics & Business, University of Groningen. Jeff joined the Department of HRM & OB in 2024.

Jeff researches belief traps–the gap between our perceptions of the social world and reality–and how these inaccurate beliefs drive negative outcomes for organizations, the environment, and politics. Utilizing experimental, field, and computational methods, Jeff examines belief traps in the contexts of sustainability and political conflict in organizations and among their leaders.

Jeff's scientific work has been published in peer-reviewed journals across disciplines, including Nature Human Behaviour, PNAS Nexus, and Science, and he's also written for professional and popular publications, including Harvard Business Review. Jeff has received several awards for his scholarly work, including the TESS Young Investigator Award, the Emerging Scholar Award from the Center for the Science of Moral Understanding, and a Research Fellowship from George Washington University's Institute for Data, Democracy, & Politics. Jeff's research has also received funding from the environmental non-profit Rare, NATO's Public Diplomacy Division, and the Social Science Research Council.

Prior to joining the University of Groningen, Jeff served as an Associate Research Scholar at Princeton University from 2022-2024, and a Visiting Assistant Professor at Clemson University from 2020-2022. Jeff completed his PhD in Organizational Behavior & Psychology at Harvard University in 2020, an MA in Social Science from the University of Chicago in 2012, and a BA in Psychology and Political Science from the University of Maine at Farmington in 2011.