Bohns Named to Braunstein Professorship

Vanessa Bohns has been named ILR’s Braunstein Family Professor. The Cornell Board of Trustees approved the professorship, which began Nov. 1.

Bohns studies social influence, compliance, consent, why it's so hard to ask for things and why it’s so hard to say no. She is the author of “You Have More Influence Than You Think,” published in 2021. Her second book, “To Speak or Not to Speak,” will be published in 2026.

Chair of ILR’s Department of Organizational Behavior, Bohns joined ILR in 2014 after teaching at the University of Toronto and the University of Waterloo in Canada. At ILR, she teaches “Psychology of Work,” “Morality at Work” and “Writing Persuasively about the Science of Persuasion.” She lectures in ILR’s Executive Master of Human Resource Management program.

Alex Colvin, Ph.D. '99, ILR’s Kenneth F. Kahn Dean and the Martin F. Scheinman '75, M.S. '76, Professor of Conflict Resolution said, “As well as being a prolific and influential researcher, Bohns is a wonderful teacher. She took the lead in developing and teaching ILR’s new foundational “Introduction to the Psychology of Work” course, which has already become one of the school’s most popular offerings.”

Her research has been published in academic journals in psychology, management and law and featured by media outlets such as The New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Economist and NPR’s Hidden Brain.

Her writing has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Harvard Business Review. She is an associate editor at “Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes” and previously served as an associate editor at the “Journal of Experimental Social Psychology” and “Social and Personality Psychology Compass.”

Bohns is a member of the editorial boards of “Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,” “Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin” and “Social Cognition.”