Contact
3950 Roberto Clemente Dr.
hev27@pitt.edu
Profile
Helen van der Sluis is an Assistant Professor of Business Administration at the Joseph M. Katz Graduate
School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh. In her research Helen is interested in consumer
welfare, and marketplace stereotyping and stigma. She examines how often-stigmatized social factors
such as disability and gender both shape and are shaped by the marketplace, and what consequences result
for consumers, marketers, and policymakers. Her research has been published in the Journal of Consumer
Research and featured in several panels related to disability and accessibility at the ACR, SCP, and AMA
(summer) conferences. Prior to joining the University of Pittsburgh, Helen was an Assistant Professor of
Marketing at the University of South Carolina’s Darla Moore School of Business. She teaches marketing
research.
Awards and Honors
- Best Advanced Talk, American Marketing Association (AMA) Consumer Behavior Special Interest Group (CBSIG) Conference (2024)
- Runner Up, Best Competitive Paper Award, Society for Consumer Psychology (SCP) Conference (2021)
- Fellow, AMA/Sheth Foundation Doctoral Consortium (2021)
- ACR/Sheth Foundation Dissertation Award: Honorable Mention, Public Purpose Track (2020)
- Best Working Paper Award, SCP Conference (2018)
Publications
Helen van der Sluis, Adriana Samper, Kirk Kristofferson, and Terri Hlava (2025), “How Do Physical
Disability Cues Influence Assumptions About Consumer Preferences? Unpacking the Disability
Preference Stereotype,” Journal of Consumer Research.
Lauren Grewal and Helen van der Sluis (equal authorship, 2024), “Understanding Barriers to
Marketplace Disability Accessibility: An Empirical Analysis of Perceived Trade-Offs,” Journal of
Consumer Research, 51(1) 66-78.
Degrees
- PhD, Marketing, Arizona State University
- BA, Psychology, Columbia University
CV File
Personal Interests
Outside of her research and teaching, Helen enjoys long walks with her family, reading, and trying to
recreate the dishes she and her partner, Joe, see on Top Chef.