Rate My Professor Seda Erdem

Professor Seda Erdem serves as Professor of Applied Economics and Head of the Economics Division within Stirling Business School at the University of Stirling. Her academic journey began with an MSc in Resource Economics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she specialized in industrial organization, food safety economics, and decision-making models. She earned her PhD in Economics from the University of Manchester, with a thesis that applied stated preference techniques to analyze consumer food choices and decision-making processes. Following her doctoral studies, Erdem held a postdoctoral researcher position at the University of York, collaborating in an interdisciplinary team to investigate public preferences for healthcare innovations. In her faculty role at the University of Stirling, she has established herself as a leading researcher in applied economics.

Erdem's research lies at the intersection of applied microeconomics, public health economics, behavioural economics, and food and resource economics. She explores consumer choice behaviour, decision-making heuristics, and preference elicitation across health, food, and marketing domains, with particular attention to risk perception, institutional trust, food safety responsibilities, and risk communication strategies. Her methodological contributions include advancements in discrete choice experiments and best-worst scaling, accounting for preference heterogeneity, attribute non-attendance, and elimination-by-aspects heuristics. Notable publications encompass "Building towards One Health: A Transdisciplinary Autoethnographic Approach to Understanding Perceptions of Sustainable Aquatic Foods in Vietnam" (2024), "Using discrete choice experiments to elicit preferences for digital wearable health technology for self-management of chronic kidney disease" (2022), "Measuring Time Preferences Using Stated Credit Repayment Choices" (2022), "Investigating the Effect of Restaurant Menu Labelling on Consumer Food Choices Using a Field Experiment" (2021), "Consumers’ preferences for nanotechnology in food packaging: a discrete choice experiment" (2015), "Prioritising Health Service Innovation Investments Using Public Preferences: A Discrete Choice Experiment" (2014), and "Using best-worst scaling to explore perceptions of relative responsibility for ensuring food safety" (2012). As Principal Investigator, she has led funded projects from The Health Foundation, NHS Highland, University of Aberdeen, and the Scottish Funding Council. Her accolades include the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) CLAHRC Research Dissemination Fund (2013), NIHR CLAHRC Research Capability Fund (2014), nomination for Teacher of the Year RATE Awards (2025), Best PechaKucha Presentation, SIRE Activity and Early Career Engagement Grants, and Stirling Management School's Seed Fund. Erdem has contributed to policy as a member of the Social Science Research Committee of the UK Food Standards Agency for six years and as an Expert Member of its Social Science Advisory Committee, ensuring her research translates into evidence-based food policies and societal impact.