Dr. Lise Vesterlund is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Economics at the University of Pittsburgh, a behavioral and experimental economist, and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Dr. Vesterlund focuses her research on charitable giving and gender differences in the labor market.
Her research has been highlighted in The New York Times, the Washington Post, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, Time magazine, and CNBC, to name a few. She has also published her work in journals including the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the American Economic Review
In 2020 Dr. Vesterlund founded and is currently Director of, the Behavioral Economics Design Initiative (BEDI), which includes the Pittsburgh Experimental Economics Laboratory (PEEL) at Pitt. In 2022 she co-authored the book, The No Club: Putting a Stop to Women’s Dead-End Work which is about how to bring gender equity to the workplace. One of her most famous papers, Do Women Shy Away From Competition? Do Men Compete Too Much, examines how men and women react differently to competition.
Her research and work in behavioral and experimental economics have shown how gender differences can and do contribute to the gender gap in advancement.