Gita V. Johar
Gita V. Johar has been on the faculty of Columbia Business School since 1992 and is currently the Meyer Feldberg Professor of Business. Johar received the Distinguished Alumnus award from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, in 2019 and the Service to the Doctoral Program Award from Columbia Business School in 2023.
She served as the Vice Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion from 2019 to 2021; Senior Vice Dean from 2011 to 2014; and Vice Dean for Research from 2010 to 2011. She has also served as Chair of the Faculty Steering Committee for the Columbia Global Centers | South Asia in Mumbai from 2015 to 2019 and currently serves on the Provost’s Advisory Council for the Enhancement of Faculty Diversity. She served as President of the Society for Consumer Psychology from 2023-2024 and as co-editor of the premier academic journal on consumer behavior, the Journal of Consumer Research, from July 2014 to December 2017.
Her expertise lies in consumer psychology, focusing on consumer identity, beliefs, motivation, and persuasion as they relate to branding, advertising, and media. Her current research examines consumer interactions with technology, aims to understand and mitigate the effects of misinformation, and studies how to use psychological principles to inspire consumers to combat climate change. She teaches Research Methods to PhD students and electives on design thinking (Innovate using Design Thinking), social innovation (Data Driven Design for Social Innovation), and Global Immersion (India) to MBA students.