Dr. Julia Lee Cunningham is an Associate Professor of Management and Organizations at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, and a National Geographic Fellow and Explorer. She currently serves as a faculty co-director for Center for Positive Organizations. She is also a faculty affiliate at the Sanger Leadership Center, and Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan. Prior to joining Ross, she served as a Lab Fellow in Institutional Corruption at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, and a Research Fellow in Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard University. She earned her PhD, MPP, and AM degrees at Harvard University, where she was trained in organizational behavior, psychology, and behavioral economics. 

Dr. Lee Cunningham studies the psychology of narratives, lay theories, and behavioral ethics. She is passionate about understanding the power of narratives in shaping objective reality, discovering the mechanisms that alter them, and illuminating how narratives can be leveraged to yield more ethical, sustainable, and adaptive behavior in the workplace. Her research has been published in a number of top scientific journals in management and psychology, including Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Psychological Science, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and Journal of Applied Psychology. 

Dr. Lee Cunningham strives to promote the use of scientific evidence in diagnosing and addressing critical problems in public policy and business practices, and has many years of experience in consulting and conducting field research with leading companies, non-profits, and governments. She teaches BBA, MBA, and executive education courses on leadership, teams, negotiation, and conflict resolution, and was named one of the Top 50 Undergraduate Business Professors by Poets and Quants in 2020.