Y. Rin Yoon
Behavioral Scientist & Assistant Professor of Marketing
Welcome! I’m an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Tippie College of Business, University of Iowa.
I study how people think and feel at the moment of transaction, and how we can design payment and incentive systems that work better for people and for society.
I hold a Ph.D. in Marketing from the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University, in Ithaca, NY—a town I wrote a short ode to in my dissertation acknowledgments. I also hold a B.A. in Communication Studies, with a minor in Statistics, from UCLA, and an M.S. in Marketing from Korea University Business School.
More about me?
Before entering academia, I worked in consulting with clients including Pfizer and Hyundai Motor Company HQs. I also hosted and produced a local radio show in Korea (which flew far under the radar), where I monologued on behavioral science, offbeat science and tech news, Korean poetry, and experimental philosophy.news
| Oct 11, 2025 | Honored and humbled to receive the Franco Nicosia Best Paper Award at the 2025 ACR in Washington, D.C.! Grateful to the community — what a highlight! |
| Apr 11, 2025 | Defended my dissertation, Consumer Psychology at the Moment of Transaction. Huge thanks to Suzanne Shu, Kaitlin Woolley, and Dave Pizarro for being on my committee! |
| Nov 14, 2024 | My paper “Increasing Hotel Loyalty Through Psychological Ownership” (with Joann Peck and Suzanne B. Shu) has been accepted in the Cornell Hospitality Quarterly. |
| May 12, 2024 | I presented my work on the Buy Now, Pay Later payment method in a plenary session at the 2024 Boulder Summer Conference on Consumer Financial Decision Making. |
| Jan 26, 2024 | My paper “The Interactive Effect of Incentive Salience and Prosocial Motivation on Prosocial Behavior” (with Kaitlin Woolley) has been accepted in Psychological Science. |