Shefali V. Patil is an associate professor of management in the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin. She studies how organizational leaders can encourage greater flexibility and adaptivity when employees confront strong evaluative pressures in complex, high-stakes environments.

Some of these evaluative pressures include those stemming from: (a) public devaluation, criticism, and image misalignments; (b) the adoption of monitoring technologies (e.g., body-worn cameras); and (c) the implementation of accountability systems and presence of competing demands. In this capacity, she has worked with numerous law enforcement, military, emergency medical rescue, and other high-stakes organizations.

She is currently studying how individuals’ expertise and socioeconomic backgrounds shape their high-pressured decision making prowess. Her research appears in top academic journals, including Academy of Management Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, Organization Science, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and Research in Organizational Behavior, and has received wide media coverage from local and national outlets.

She earned her B.S. in management and organizations summa cum laude, with Beta Gamma Sigma honors, from the Stern School of Business at New York University, and her Ph.D. in managerial science and applied economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.