Kelly Geyskens and Peiran Jiao appointed professors at SBE
Kelly Geyskens and Peiran Jiao are appointed Professors at Maastricht University School of Business and Economics (SBE). Working in different fields of research, they share an interest in understanding what drives people’s decisions and how scientific insights can help improve those decisions in practice.
For Jiao, whose research focuses on behavioural and experimental finance, this means exploring the cognitive foundations behind financial decision-making and how these can shape financial markets. Geyskens, who holds a chair in consumer wellbeing, examines the influences that shape consumers’ choices, often without them being fully aware of it. As they take on their new roles, both see the professorship not simply as recognition of what they have achieved, but as an opportunity to develop their research, education and wider contribution to the university further.
Understanding financial decisions
For Peiran Jiao, becoming a professor is both a personal achievement and a recognition of his contributions to academia and SBE. Having worked towards this stage of his career over several years, he sees the appointment as the beginning of a new chapter, bringing greater responsibility for research, education and leadership.
His research focuses on behavioural and experimental finance, with a particular interest in the cognitive foundations of financial decision-making. His approach is relatively theory-driven in a field where much research is empirical or survey-based. Drawing on behavioural economics, psychology and microeconomics, he first develops theories about the mechanisms underlying financial decisions and then tests whether those theories hold in practice. “The beauty of it is that with a theory, you can explore more,” Jiao explains. The same cognitive mechanisms, for example, can help explain the decisions of very different financial market participants. This approach has also enabled him to build collaborations across different areas of finance and economics.
Understanding these mechanisms matters beyond academia. People make financial decisions throughout their lives, from investing and saving for retirement to responding to new information. At a broader level, the way market participants process information and respond to uncertainty can also affect the functioning of financial markets. Since joining Maastricht University, Jiao has increasingly collaborated with practitioners, including pension and index funds in the Netherlands. Working with real-world data allows him to test his theories in practice and explore how financial decision-making and regulation could be improved.
As he steps into his new role, Jiao wants to maintain the momentum of his research while strengthening the connection between research and education. He would like to see behavioural finance introduced at bachelor level as well as at master’s level, giving students a better understanding of their own biases when managing portfolios and making financial decisions.
He also hopes to contribute to strengthening SBE’s research profile in behavioural finance and related fields, while fostering interdisciplinary and international collaboration. For Jiao, the professorship is therefore another step in an ongoing journey: one that combines research, education and a growing role in developing the academic community around him.
Understanding consumer choices
For Kelly Geyskens, the appointment also represents recognition of a journey that has been developing over many years. She feels that she has gradually grown into many of the responsibilities associated with a professorship, from taking on more management and administrative responsibilities to developing her own research domain. In that sense, becoming a professor feels like a natural next step. “Mission accomplished,” she says with a smile. At the same time, the new position gives her more room to develop the parts of the role she enjoys most, including the creativity that comes with doing research.
Geyskens holds a chair in consumer wellbeing, focusing on how marketing and consumption environments shape consumers’ choices that contribute to their wellbeing. Her research starts from the observation that consumer behaviour is often shaped by influences that people are not consciously aware of. Marketing cues can affect what people buy and eat, while social influences and other environmental factors can also shape their decisions. By understanding these influences, her research aims to make consumers more aware of what shapes their choices and ultimately help them make better decisions. Her work combines experimental research with household and purchasing data, allowing her to look not only at what happens in controlled settings, but also at how consumption patterns develops over time and what they mean for consumer wellbeing. The practical relevance of this work extends to both consumers and companies. For consumers, understanding how their choices are influenced can help them make more informed decisions. At the same time, Geyskens sees opportunities for companies to develop responsible marketing practices that support consumer wellbeing and build healthier and more sustainable long-term relationships with consumers.
For Geyskens, the boundary between everyday life and academic research is a thin one. Questions for her research can emerge from ordinary experiences, whether in the supermarket, at the dinner table or while observing how people behave in their daily lives. She sees this as one of the things that makes consumer research so engaging. It is also part of what she hopes to pass on to the next generation of researchers, particularly women: that academic research can be ambitious while remaining closely connected to everyday life, and that there is room to find both purpose and enjoyment in it.
Looking ahead, she would like to further develop this interdisciplinary research by studying not only how consumers respond behaviourally to marketing and consumption cues, but also how their bodies respond. One avenue she is particularly interested in exploring is how certain cues might trigger physical responses, such as changes in hormones, and how these responses relate to subsequent behaviour. Collaborations across Maastricht University could bring together expertise in consumer behaviour, nutrition and health to explore these questions. She also has another ambition in mind: one day writing a book about what a diet that really works could look like.
Looking ahead
While their research takes them into very different settings, both Jiao and Geyskens are interested in a similar fundamental question: why do people make the decisions they make? Their work shows how understanding the cognitive, social and environmental factors behind those decisions can have implications far beyond academia, from financial markets and retirement planning to food choices and consumer wellbeing.
Their new professorships therefore mark not an endpoint, but another step in their research journeys. Both are looking to build new collaborations, strengthen their fields within Maastricht University and explore new ways of connecting research with education and practice.
For Jiao, this includes bringing behavioural finance to more students and strengthening international research collaboration. For Geyskens, it means taking consumer wellbeing research into new interdisciplinary territory, including the possibility of studying how consumers’ bodies respond to the cues they encounter in everyday life.