Rom Schrift
Assistant Professor of Marketing
University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School
Professor Rom Schrift, is an award-winning teacher and researcher in the marketing field. In the six years he’s been teaching at Wharton, he’s gained three awards for his teaching of Penn’s undergraduate business students. When he isn’t teaching, you can likely find Professor Schrift engaged in research. His interests in consumer behavior, judgment, and decision making have helped him acquire multiple grants and awards including a Dean’s Research Grant and recognition as a 2017 Marketing Science Institute Young Scholar.
Age: 42
At current institution since: 2011
Education: PhD, Marketing, Columbia Business School, 2011; Phil., Columbia University, 2008; MBA, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2006; BSc, Mechanical Engineering, Ben-Gurion University, 2002
List of courses currently teaching: Systematic Approaches to Creativity
“I knew I wanted to be a business school professor when…” During my MBA, I was inspired by one of my Professors (Prof. Jacob Goldenberg) and started a research project on how to improve market research tools. Soon after, I realized that researching business questions, with practical real-world implication, is what I wanted to do and applied for PhD programs in Marketing.
“One word that describes my first time teaching…” Energy and passion
What do you enjoy most about teaching undergraduate business students? I enjoy challenging their mindsets and watching how they internalize and use some of the concepts I teach.
What is the most impressive thing one of your undergraduate students has done? It is hard to choose one. I am extremely impressed and excited every time one of my students (current or former) contacts me with creative ideas and solutions they came up with using the concepts covered in class.
What does a student need to do to get an A in your class? Understand the concepts covered in class and practice how to apply these tools and come up with creative solutions to real-life challenges.
“When it comes to grading, I think students would describe me as …” Somewhat fair
“But I would describe myself as …” Very fair
What are your hobbies? Martial arts, movies, water sports, beach volleyball
Favorite place to vacation: Bahamas
Favorite movie and/or television show: “The Shawshank Redemption” and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”
Favorite type of music and/or favorite artist: U2, B. B. King, Sting, Johnny Cash, Paganini, Aerosmith
What professional achievement are you most proud of? Receiving the excellence in teaching award and having my dissertation paper as a finalist for the 2016, long-term impact O’Dell award.
What are you currently researching and what is the most significant discovery you’ve made from it? Broadly, my research focuses on how perceptions of complexity influence decision making and task performance. Some projects relate to how and why we sometime, needlessly, complicate our decisions. Other projects relate to what makes us perceive the activity we engage in, as either multitasking or single-tasking, and how such mere perceptions impact our performance on the task.
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