Dr. Sophie Van Der Zee

Biography

Sophie van der Zee has a multi-disciplinary background in psychology, economics, and computer science and is currently an Assistant Professor at the Erasmus School of Economics, where she serves as the academic director of the MSc in Behavioural Economics. Her research focuses on the interplay between human behavior and security, specializing in the prevention and detection of deception in both face-to-face and online settings. By developing automatic methods to measure human behavior using motion capture technology, she aims to enhance deception detection capabilities. One notable application of her research is the creation of a personalized deception detection model based on tweets from former President Donald Trump. Additionally, she investigates how scammers persuade potential victims and the impact of noncompliance with online banking regulations. Recently, she has been researching the effectiveness of cyber awareness questionnaires as tools for predicting real-world cyber secure behavior from a behavioral economics perspective. Sophie actively fosters collaboration among deception researchers globally and founded the Deception Research Society, which organizes various academic events and conferences to facilitate knowledge sharing. Furthermore, she hosts free webinars known as 'Lies Allies’ Tuesdays' to connect researchers and practitioners in the field.

Research Interests

Experience