Scientific Instructor Bio:

Namika Sagara, Ph.D.

Behavioral Scientist, Sagara Consulting LLC

Namika Sagara Ph.D. is a behavioral scientist with 15+ years of experience in behavioral economics and consumer decision-making research. Currently, she’s a president of Sagara Consulting LLC and works with a wide range of industries including financial and insurance to help companies learn how consumer actually behave (as opposed to how they think they behave or how they think they should behave). She does so by conducting consumer research and behavioral economics experiments in various business environments to identify the driver of the irrational behaviors to help business create more effective customer’s decision making environments as well as communication tactics.

In addition to research consultations, she offers training workshops as well as keynote speeches at national conferences to discuss the essence of behavioral economics and the applications of behavioral tactics in various business and functional areas. 

 She also holds a visiting research position at Duke University where she conducts consumer behavior research with professors from leading universities, such as Columbia and UCLA. She also has taught marketing courses as well as research methods courses at the University of Oregon. Her work has been published in prestigious peer-reviewed academic journals and also has appeared in numerous media outlets, such as the Guardian and Science Daily. Dr. Sagara received her B.S. and M.S. in Psychology and Ph.D. in Marketing from University of Oregon, and was a Post Doctoral Associate at Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.

Business Instructor Bio:

Steve Shu

Principal, Steve Shu Consulting

Steve Shu provides management consulting and business development services. He specializes in incubating new initiatives and business lines with primary focus on services, technology, and behavioral economics. Steve has held a number consulting and management roles at Allscripts, Allianz Global Investors Center for Behavioral Finance, Digitai, Nortel Business Consulting, Pittiglio Rabin Todd and McGrath (acquired by PwC), and numerous startups. Steve has also been an Assistant Professor in the business school at Irvine University and an Account Director for the Taproot Foundation.

 Steve is the author of The Consulting Apprenticeship: 40 Jump-Start Ideas for You and Your Business. He is currently writing Inside Nudging: Navigating Behavioral Science Applications, which addresses implementing behavioral economics and finance in business settings.

 Steve holds an MBA from the University of Chicago and both an ME and BS in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University. He has attended executive education training on Dynamic Management at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.