Sharlene He (She/Her)

Dr. Sharlene He is Associate Professor and Conrad Research Excellence Chair at the University of Waterloo. Her research focuses on understanding how people think, feel, make decisions, and solve problems in consumption and organizational contexts. She provides rigourous, theory-driven insights that address important practical issues or challenges for managers and organizations. Her research is published in leading journals, including Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, and Journal of Marketing. She earned her PhD at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, her MA at the University of Toronto, and her BCom at Queen’s University.

Professor He seeks to partner with organizations to understand and solve complex challenges that require deep insight into how people think, feel, and make decisions. Her research focuses on three main areas:

Better Judgments and Decisions

Professor He’s research provides insights about how people make judgments and decisions when confronted uncertainty and ambiguity, and why these decisions often turn out to be suboptimal. Her work examines why people fail to rely on the most important information when making decisions, and how environments can be designed to support better outcomes.

Customer Willingness-to-Pay

Professor He also studies how people form judgments of willingness-to-pay, or value, for products and services and the implications for pricing strategy. She developed the Comparative Method of Valuation, a methodology that measures willingness-to-pay in the context of competing options and maps more closely to purchasing behavior. She has applied this methodology to help managers and entrepreneurs answer important questions related to product design and pricing.

AI and Human Thinking

In an emerging research stream, Professor He studies how new technologies such as AI affect people’s decision making, creative thinking, and problem solving, with a view towards understanding how these technologies can be implemented responsibly. She is a founding member of the Future of Work Institute at the University of Waterloo, which aims to shape a resilient and meaningful future of work and learning. She is also a core member of the AI Readiness for Organizations Lab (AIReady Lab), which aims to research, build, and help organizations deploy AI ethically and effectively.

She welcomes intellectually curious graduate students interested in these research areas. Prospective PhD students are encouraged to reach out directly in advance of submitting their application.

• Judgment and decision making in situations of uncertainty and change

• Customer willingness-to-pay and pricing strategy

• Consumer response to new technologies (algorithmic recommendations, AI)

• PhD, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

• MA in Economics, University of Toronto, Canada

• BCom, Queen's University, Canada

• 2023 Dean’s Award for Distinguished Scholarship – Emerging Scholar (John Molson School of Business, Concordia University)

• 2023 Petro-Canada Young Innovator Award

• BET 400 - Marketing Foundations for Early-stage Ventures
  • Taught in 2025
• BET 602 - Marketing Strategies for New Technology-based Ventures
  • Taught in 2024, 2025
• BET 702 - Organization Behaviour
  • Taught in 2025

* Only courses taught in the past 5 years are displayed.

• He, Sharlene, Eric T. Anderson, and Derek D. Rucker (2024), “Comparative Method of Valuation: A New Methodology to Assess Willingness-to-Pay,” Journal of Marketing, 88(3), 50-68.

• He, Sharlene and Brian Sternthal (2023), “Beyond Numbers: An Ambiguity-Accessibility-Applicability Framework to Explain the Attraction Effect,” Journal of Consumer Research, 50(1), 211–232.

• Rocklage, Matthew D., Sharlene He, Derek D. Rucker, and Loran F. Nordgren (2023), “Beyond Sentiment: The Value and Measurement of Consumer Certainty in Language,” Journal of Marketing Research, 60(5), 870–888.

• He, Sharlene and Derek D. Rucker (2023), “How Uncertainty Affects Information Seeking Among Consumers: A Curvilinear Perspective,” Marketing Letters, 34, 415–428.

• Calder, Bobby, Sharlene He, and Brian Sternthal (2023), “Using Theoretical Frameworks in Behavioral Research,” Journal of Business Research, 161.

• He, Sharlene and Eric T. Anderson (2021), “Conceptualizing and Measuring Pathways for How Object Attachment Affects Willingness to Pay (WTP),” Current Opinion in Psychology, 39, 121–124.

• Rucker, Derek D. and Sharlene He (2016), “Psychological Mindsets Affect Consumption: How Different Mindsets Help (Hurt) Portion Control,” Appetite, 103, 425-431.