Neil Lewis, Jr. is Assistant Professor of Communication and Social Behavior at Cornell University with graduate faculty appointments in Communication and Psychology. Dr. Lewis is a social psychologist whose research focuses on how the interplay between people’s identities and social contexts influence their motivation to pursue their goals, and their success in goal pursuit efforts. He studies these processes primarily in the domains of education, health, and sustainability in hopes that a better understanding of these processes can provide useful insights for developing interventions to help people achieve their goals in these domains. Lewis is particularly interested in developing and scaling interventions that can reduce disparities in education, health, and environmental outcomes. Dr. Lewis’s research has been published in a variety of peer-reviewed outlets including the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Psychological Science, and Perspectives on Psychological Science. It has also been featured in mass media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Forbes Magazine, and Business Insider.

Dr. Lewis received his B.A. in Economics and Psychology from Cornell University, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of Michigan.