Gabrielle (Gabe) Adams

Education: BA, Colby College; PhD, Business Administration (Organizational Behavior), Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Gabrielle Adams is a behavioral scientist, with a joint appointment as an assistant professor of public policy (Batten) and business administration (Darden: Leadership and Organizational Behavior area). Professor Adams studies the processes and dynamics that give rise to 'good' decisions, policies, and conditions in organizations. Her research focuses on psychological inefficiencies: the factors that cause friction and prevent people from understanding one another's viewpoints or making sound decisions. For example, why is it so difficult to resolve interpersonal conflict? Why do attempts to resolve ethical transgressions backfire? Her most recent research on design and problem-solving shows that when improving ideas, objects, or situations, people default to considering what they might add and only occasionally and effortfully consider what they could subtract.

Her research has been published in journals such as Nature, Psychological Science; Journal of Experimental Psychology: General; Journal of Personality and Social Psychology; and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. It has also been the subject of articles in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Harvard Business Review, and has been featured on national public radio (NPR, BBC, CBC).

Professor Adams teaches courses on leadership; interpersonal and group dynamics; diversity, equity, and inclusion; power, status, and influence; change; and negotiations. She has also taught many executive education programs for both public and private sector organizations. Professor Adams received UVA's All-University Teaching Award in 2021 and was named one of the 40 Best Business School Professors Under 40 by Poets & Quants. She also serves as a non-executive director/advisor of BrandsEye, Names & Faces, and Space 3, and is an affiliate of ideas42.

She received her BA from Colby College and her PhD in Business Administration (Organizational Behavior) from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.