Biography

Charlan Jeanne Nemeth is a Professor in the Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley. Her background includes a B.A. in Mathematics from Washington University in St. Louis and a PhD in Psychology from Cornell University. Her faculty appointments include the University of Chicago, the University of Virginia and the University of British Columbia with visiting appointments in Bristol (UK), Paris (France), Trento (Italy), Mannheim (Germany) and London (UK). In 2004-5, she was the Leverhulme Trust Fellow at Aston Business School in Birmingham, UK and in 2005-2008 was Visiting Professor of Organizational Behaviour at London Business School. She has given keynote addresses to the Oregon Bar Assn, to the American Bar Executives and to the American Assn of State Colleges and Universities. Her work has been featured in Wired, Ode, the New Yorker and various media outlets.

Professor Nemeth has taught executive education in the areas of persuasion, team decision making, scientific creativity, corporate cultures and innovation and given invited addresses or workshops at major companies. She served as Chair of the Board of Advisors for the Institute of Management, Innovation and Organization at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley.

As a visiting professor at London Business School in 2006-9, she co-led consulting field trips to South Africa for Executive MBA students.

Her most recent book on decision-making pulls together decades of research on influence processes with particular attention to raising the quality of individual and team decisions. Her research underscores how influence processes change the nature of thought and underscore two themes: the perils of consensus and the value of dissent for the quality of decision making and the creativity of solutions.

Click here for a depiction of her and her work by an artist friend, Fernando Suarez of Sitges and Barcelona Spain.

EDUCATION


  • 1966 - 1968
    Graduate study in Social Psychology
    Cornell University (Ph.D.1968)
  • 1965 - 1966
    Graduate study in Social Psychology
    Oxford University, Oxford UK.
  • 1963 - 1965
    Graduate study in Social Psychology
    University of Wisconsin (M.A.)
  • 1959 - 1963
    Undergraduate study in Mathematics and Social Psychology
    Washington University St. Louis (B.A.)

ACADEMIC POSITIONS


  • 2015 - Present
    Professor of Graduate School and Professor of Psychology Emerita
    University of California, Berkeley
  • 1977 - 2015
    Professor of Psychology
    University of California Berkeley
  • 2005 - 2008
    Visiting Professor of Organizational Behavior
    London Business School.
  • 2004 - 2005
    Leverhulme Fellow
    Aston Business School, Birmingham UK
  • 1995 – 2000
    Chair, Board of Advisors Institute of Management, Innovation and Organization
    Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley.
  • 1995 – 2000
    Fellow, Institute of Management, Innovation and Organization
    Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley
  • Summer 1990
    Visiting Professor
    SFB 24 University of Mannheim, Germany
  • 1975 - 1995 (Periodic Appointments)
    Director d’Etudes
    Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales
  • 1975 - 1977
    Associate Professor of Psychology
    University of British Columbia, Vancouver BC, Canada
  • 1974 - 1975
    Fellow
    Battelle Seattle Research Center, Seattle WA.
  • 1973 - 1977
    Member of Advisory Panel, Social Sciences Review Branch
    National Institutes of Mental Health
  • 1973 - 1975
    Associate Professor of Psychology
    University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
  • Spring 1970
    Visiting Professor
    Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France
  • Fall 1969
    Visiting Professor
    University of Bristol, UK.
  • 1968 - 1973
    Assistant Professor of Psychology
    University of Chicago
  • Fellow of the American Psychological Association
  • Fellow of Division 8 of the American Psychological Association
  • Fellow of the American Psychological Society
  • Woodrow Wilson Honorary Fellow
  • Phi Beta Kappa