Dr. James A. Grand is an Associate Professor in the Social, Decision, and Organizational Sciences program in the Department of Psychology at the University of Maryland.

My primary work focuses on understanding how individuals and teams build knowledge, make decisions, and enact behaviors to accomplish personal and collective goals. My research philosophy is heavily inspired by the science of complex systems, which suggests that the psychological and social phenomena we observe emerge from how actions, relationships, perceptions, events, and contexts unfold within and between people over time in an environment.

Examples of my specific research interests include how individuals working within teams gather, share, and interpret information to make decisions and accomplish tasks; how the behaviors, communication, and regulatory efforts (e.g., leadership, influence) among individuals affects individual and collective outcomes; and how judgment/information processing influence individual learning and assessment outcomes. I rely on a variety of methodologies and data sources to study these topics, including behavioral observation, experimental studies, and computational modeling/simulation.

Beyond my professional interests, I love spending time with my wife and our two kids, hiking and outdoor activities, watching and remembering when I used to actually be able to play sports, playing board games, and learning about computers, space, and other nerdy stuff.

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