Ale Smidts

Ale Smidts is a Full Professor at the Rotterdam School of Management (RSM), Erasmus University, where he is affiliated with the Department of Marketing Management. He serves as the director of RSM's Erasmus Center for Neuroeconomics, a leading research hub integrating neuroscience and marketing. He previously held significant leadership roles, including chair of the Department of Marketing Management (2012–2020), scientific director of ERIM (2004–2011), and dean of RSM Research. He was a board member of the Social Science and Humanities Division of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) from 2012 to 2019 and has been a member of the Advisory Board of the Neuromarketing Science and Business Association (NMSBA) since 2015.

His research focuses on decision neuroscience and neuromarketing, particularly the neural underpinnings of consumer decision-making, social influence, and dishonesty. His work aims to use brain metrics to predict market-level success. He has published extensively in top-tier journals across marketing, neuroscience, and behavioral economics, including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), NeuroImage, Journal of Marketing Research, and Journal of Consumer Research.

The most recent publications demonstrate a strong trend in using neuroimaging (especially fMRI) to decode emotional and cognitive responses to advertisements, moral decisions, and naturalistic stimuli. His research combines experimental design, machine learning, and neural data to explore individual differences in behavior, metacontrol, and reward processing. Themes include honesty modulation via cognitive control, neural arousal as a predictor of ad success, and decoding shared neural patterns in affective experiences.

• MOA Scientist of the Year Award 2021
• ERIM Top Article Award 2019
• Jan Benedict E.M. Steenkamp Award for Long-Term Impact 2017
• IJRM Best Paper Award 2007
• ERIM Top Article Award 2002

Ale Smidts has supervised 19 students and early-career researchers, as indicated under 'Supervised Work'. He has been actively involved in editorial roles, serving on the boards of Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics, and Academy of Management Journal. He was a member of the Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM) from 2004 to 2011. His research has received public attention, including media coverage on machine learning for tracking emotional experiences and recognition at ERIM’s annual awards.

He leads the Erasmus Center for Neuroeconomics, a multidisciplinary team focused on advancing neuromarketing science through empirical research, collaboration, and innovation in measurement techniques. The center fosters partnerships across neuroscience, psychology, and business, contributing to both academic and industry applications.