Susan Weinschenk Phd

Susan is the person to go to when you need to know how to persuade and motivate people to take action. She has a Ph.D. in Psychology and over 30 years of experience as a behavioral scientist. Her clients call her “The Brain Lady” because she applies research on brain science to predict, understand, and explain what motivates people and how they behave. Dr. Weinschenk is the author of several books, including "How To Get People To Do Stuff," "100 Things Every Presenter Needs To Know About People," "100 Things Every Designer Needs To Know About People," and "Neuro Web Design: What makes them click?"

Dr. Weinschenk consults, teaches, and mentors individuals and teams on the design of websites, software, medical devices, TV ads, physical devices, experiences, and physical spaces to make them persuasive, usable and motivating. She writes a popular blog at this website, and also the “Brain Wise: Work better, work smarter” blog for Psychology Today.

While working on her Ph.D., Dr. Weinschenk conducted research on the left and right half of the brain. She was a college psychology professor at State University of New York (Oswego) and then began consulting. Early in her career she focused on applying cognitive psychology (how people think, remember, perceive), to make technology more usable. Recently she’s gone back to her neuropsychology roots, studying the newest brain science and research on unconscious mental processing — decision-making, persuasion, and emotion.

Susan started college at Virgina Tech and finished her undergraduate degree in Psychology at Northeastern. She then earned a Masters and Ph.D. at Pennsylvania State University.

Susan lives in Wisconsin, USA, with her husband. Her two children are grown and “launched”. When not teaching, speaking, writing, or blogging, Susan performs in community theatre, sings jazz, reads books, and is an avid movie watcher.