David Gal is an expert in consumer behavior, consumer judgment and decision making, and financial decision making. Professor Gal researches a wide range of consumer behavior topics, including loss aversion; how consumers approach and respond to financial and other types of risk and losses; and the role of identity in consumer choices and decisions. Professor Gal has designed and used consumer surveys extensively in his research. He has identified previously unrecognized biases in survey methods. He has also analyzed the foundational assumptions underlying conjoint analysis. Separately, Professor Gal has researched consumer behavior on social media and the business intelligence that can be gathered through social media analytics.
Professor Gal has published numerous articles in leading academic journals in the fields of marketing, statistics, and psychology. He is an associate editor of the Journal of Consumer Psychology and serves on the editorial review boards of the Journal of Consumer Research and the Journal of Marketing Research. His work has also been featured in mainstream media outlets, such as Harvard Business Review, Scientific American, and the Wall Street Journal.
Professor Gal has consulted to Fortune 500 companies on a variety of consumer-focused marketing topics. He has also designed and analyzed consumer surveys in the context of litigation.
At the University of Illinois at Chicago, Professor Gal teaches courses on marketing-led innovation and marketing management. Previously, he served on the faculty at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.