People

 Amir Goldberg

Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior
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​My work and interests lie at the intersection of computation and social science. As an undergraduate, I double majored in computer science and film studies at Tel-Aviv University. I have been exploring the connections between computation and culture ever since. I have an MA in sociology from Goldsmiths College, University of London, and a PhD in sociology from Princeton University. My work is not easily described using standard labels. I use computationally intensive language- and network-based methods applied to big data to model cultural dynamics in organizations, markets, and informal social groups. My research projects all share an overarching theme: the desire to understand the social mechanisms that underlie how people construct meaning and consequently pursue action. For more about my work, please visit my personal webpage.

Sameer B. Srivastava 

Associate Professor and Harold Furst Chair in Management Philosophy and Values

My research unpacks the interrelationships among the culture of social groups, the cognition of individuals in these groups, and the connections that people forge within and across groups. Much of my work is set in organizational contexts, where I use computational methods to examine how culture, cognition, and networks relate to career outcomes. As an undergraduate, I studied Economics at Harvard College. I then pursued a career in management consulting, earning an MBA from Harvard Business School along the way and eventually becoming a partner at Monitor Group (now Monitor Deloitte). I then returned to Harvard for a PhD in Organizational Behavior and Sociology. My work spans, and draws novel connections among, multiple levels of analysis. Although anchored in sociology, my research draws insight and perspective from neighboring disciplines such as social psychology, political science, and linguistics. For more about about my work, please visit my personal webpage. 

Lab Members
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Richard Lu

University of California, Berkeley

​​Hi. My name is Richard Lu. I started the PhD program in Management of Organizations at UC Berkeley-Haas in 2014, and am thankful to be a part of this culture lab! Not surprisingly, my research interests involve studying organizational culture from a quantitative perspective, trying to understand how, when, and why people understand and manifest cultural values. I'm also interested in studying labor market discrimination, and perhaps how organizational culture can be used as a subtle form of it. In my free time, I greatly enjoy spending time with my wife and with my church.

Lara Yang

Stanford University
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​​Lara is a first-year PhD student in Macro Organizational Behavior at Stanford GSB. She is broadly interested in using computational methods to study organizational culture across multiple levels of analysis. Her current research examines the relationship between physical spaces and local group cultures. Prior to Stanford, she received bachelor’s degrees in computer science and psychology from University of California, Berkeley, and a master’s degree in industrial organizational psychology from San Francisco State University. Whenever she is on the road, Lara loves catching up on her favorite podcasts.

ABRAHAM OSHOTSE

Stanford University
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Abraham Oshotse is a PhD candidate in Organizational Behavior at Stanford GSB. He has special interests in processes of endogenous cultural change. His research on culture thus far has followed two streams: The first explores the dynamics of innovation, positioning, and success in cultural markets, by applying computational and machine learning methods to product feature data. The second focuses on cultural boundary marking and crossing among culturally distinct groups, using experimental approaches to understand the psychological mechanisms that prompt different types of affective responses. Prior to his PhD program, Abraham received an M.S. in Quantitative Methods from the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education and worked as a research analyst in the Capital Markets function at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Anjali Bhatt

Stanford University

Anjali Bhatt is a third year PhD student in Organizational Behavior at Stanford GSB. Her research focuses on using computational techniques like agent-based modeling and text analysis to understand how organizational culture emerges, evolves, and diffuses, as well as ways in which it affects and is affected by diversity and inequality in organizations. Prior to graduate school, Anjali received her bachelor’s degree in physics from Harvard and spent several years consulting with organizations on their social impact strategy. ​

V. GOVIND MANIAN

Stanford University

V. Govind Manian joined the Stanford Organizational Behavior department in 2015. For his dissertation, he intends to use cutting edge tools from natural language processing to illuminate how collective understandings are constructed from individual actions. He has co-authored publications that have appeared in American Sociological Review and Management Science. He holds a masters in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford and bachelors degrees in Biomedical Engineering and Pure Mathematics.

Katharina Lix

Stanford University

Katharina is a first-year PhD student in Management Science & Engineering, concentrating in Computational Social Science. She uses network science and computational linguistics to study team culture and performance. Her current projects investigate the relationship between communication patterns of virtual teams of software developers and their performance. Katharina holds a BA in Psychology and Economics from Harvard (’14). Prior to joining Stanford, Katharina worked as a project manager at a pharmaceuticals company in Frankfurt, Germany, and taught English and yoga in Northern India. Hailing from Northwest Germany, she appreciates California’s sunshine every day and loves exploring its great outdoors. 
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paul Vicinanza

Stanford University

Paul is a second-year PhD student in the Organizational Behavior department at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. Prior to attending Stanford he served as a visiting fellow and research assistant at the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems. His research utilizes modern computational-linguistic techniques to better understand broad patterns of societal change and evolution.

austin van loon

Stanford University

Austin van Loon is a PhD candidate in the Sociology department who studies how the meanings that people make in their everyday lives and how they interact with others mutually affect one another. He has special interests in political polarization, organizational culture, and workplace inequalities, and the long-term aim of his research is to help us better the functioning of the worlds' democracies and make workplaces both more productive and more equitable for historically disadvantaged groups. He uses a broad range of tools to do his research including: automated text analysis, machine learning, network analysis, online experiments, and observational causal inference. In his free time he writes and plays music as well as attends live jazz and stand-up comedy shows. Find out more about him at his personal website.

Samaksh (Avi) Goyal

Stanford University

​Samaksh (Avi) Goyal. Avi is an undergraduate planning on studying Computer Science and Economics. His current work in the lab involves constructing word embedding models through natural language processing to better understand culture in organizations. Prior to coming to Stanford, he has worked on wet lab biology and computational genomics projects. In his free time, he enjoys exploring the outdoors in his flip-flops and is part of a competitive nationally recognized Indian dance team: Basmati Raas.

Collaborators
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​Jennifer A. Chatman, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley
Gabriel Doyle, Psychology Department, Stanford University
Michael C. Frank, Psychology Department, Stanford University
Giuseppe (Joe) Labianca, Gatton College of Business and Economics, University of Kentucky
Sanaz Mobasseri, Questrom School of Business, Boston University
Will Monroe, Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Christopher Potts, Linguistics Department, Stanford University
Melissa A. Valentine, Management Science & Engineering Department, Stanford University

Alumni
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Matthew Corritore, Assistant Professor, Strategy & Organization, Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University
Paul Gouvard, Assistant Professor of Organizational Theory, USI Università della Svizzera italiana 
Sarah Stein, Paradigm
​Soomin Cho, PhD Student, Columbia Business School
Aashna Garg, Stanford Center for Advanced Research Pailthrough Online Learning
Jan Overgoor, PhD Candidate, Stanford University
Jesse Fagan, Lecturer in Data Analytics, University of Exeter Business School