Petra Schmid

Biography

Petra Schmid is a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Department of Management, Technology, and Economics (D-MTEC). After earning her licentiate's degree in Psychology at the University of Bern in 2006, she completed her PhD in Work Psychology at the Institute of Work and Organizational Psychology at the University of Neuchatel in 2009. She also gained first postdoctoral experience from 2010-2012 at the University of Neuchatel where she was part of a project funded by the Geneva-based NCCR Affective Sciences. During this postdoctoral period, she obtained funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and the University of Neuchatel for three short scientific stays at the University of Tampere, Finland. Dr. Schmid was additionally awarded the SNSF Fellowship for Prospective Researchers—a postdoctoral fellowship for a 2-year stay at the Department of Psychology (Social Neuroscience Lab) at New York University from 2012 to 2014. She continued working as a postdoctoral fellow at New York University until joining the faculty of ETH Zurich in 2015.

Research Interest

Petra Schmid examines the psychological and neural mechanisms involved in the effect of social power on behavior. Much of her research focuses on the role of affect, motivation, and self-control in the effects of power on goal-directed behavior and decision-making.