About
Cassie Mogilner Holmes is a chaired professor at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, an award-winning teacher and researcher on time and happiness, and bestselling author of Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most.
Cassie’s research examines such questions as how focusing on time (rather than money) increases happiness, how the meaning of happiness changes over the course of one’s lifetime, and how much happiness people enjoy from extraordinary versus ordinary experiences. Across these inquiries, her findings highlight the joy that stems from interpersonal connection and paying attention to the present moment.
Cassie’s research has been published in such top-tier academic journals as Psychological Science and the Journal of Consumer Research. Popular accounts of her work have been featured on NPR and such publications as The Economist, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Scientific American and the Boston Globe. Her work on giving time was featured in New York Times Magazine’s “32 Innovations that Will Change Your Tomorrow.” She was identified among the Best 40 Business Professors Under 40, and she received the Early Career Award for her distinguished scholarly contributions to her field from both the Association of Consumer Research and the Society of Consumer Psychology.
Holmes developed and teaches the course Applying the Science of Happiness to Life Design, which helps students thrive in their personal and professional lives and has become one of UCLA’s most popular courses among MBAs and Executive MBAs alike. Pulling insights from research in psychology and behavioral decision making, as well as her own research, this course provides students with ideas and tools to apply to improve their day-to-day living and the design of their career and life overall. Based on this course, Holmes wrote Happier Hour. A Wall Street Journal Bestseller and selected an Amazon Best Book of 2022, Happier Hour provides a practical guide for how to think about and spend time to live a more joyful life.
Previously, Holmes was a tenured faculty member and award-winning teacher at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She has a Ph.D. from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, and a B.A. from Columbia.