Himanshu Mishra is an expert in consumer behavior, survey research, and computational social science, including the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models (LLMs) to analyze consumer and marketplace data.
Professor Mishra studies brand perception, advertising claims, and consumer decision-making. His experience includes applying machine learning and natural language processing to gain insights from customer communications, social media content, and other unstructured data.
Expert testimony on trademark confusion and deceptive advertising claims
Retained as an expert witness in multiple matters in federal district courts, state court, and before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB), Professor Mishra has authored expert reports and has testified in depositions and at trial. He has addressed trademark confusion, trade dress confusion, secondary meaning, trademark fame, materiality, and allegations of deceptive advertising. He has also evaluated methodologies that use LLMs to analyze customer communications and classify social media content. He has studied the reliability of internet surveys used as evidence in intellectual property (IP) litigation.
Professor Mishra’s industry experience in these contexts includes consumer products, food and beverage, live events and sports, pharmaceuticals, quick service restaurants (QSR), social media, and software, including matters involving business-to-business (B2B) products and services.
Research on the impact of algorithms and language on consumer judgment and choice
In his academic research, Professor Mishra analyzes how algorithms, language, and the presentation of information can influence judgment and choice.
Using natural language processing and machine learning, Professor Mishra has examined marketplace recommendation systems and the relationship between language structure and social attitudes. His field studies span patient queuing systems in healthcare delivery and the role of human oversight in algorithmic risk prediction. In related methodological work, he has evaluated the use of LLMs in social science research.
Professor Mishra has examined the effect of marketing claims and product presentation on consumer preferences, including “eco-friendly” marketing claims and message tone, changes in package size, and price discounts. His field experiments have measured food consumption and purchase behavior under different product and promotion conditions.
In a separate line of research, Professor Mishra has addressed how consumers judge risk and make financial choices, including testing whether presenting the same information (as a map, a range, or an exact figure) changes perceived risks and expected outcomes. His research on saving and spending analyzes motivated reasoning in household financial decisions and the effect of income timing on consumer purchases.
Publications and media coverage
Professor Mishra is coauthor of the book Business Analytics: Solving Business Problems with R (SAGE Publications). His articles have appeared in numerous leading journals of marketing, business, and psychology, such as the Journal of Marketing Research, the Journal of Consumer Research, Psychological Science, the Journal of Marketing, Marketing Science, Management Science, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. He serves on the editorial review boards of the Journal of Consumer Psychology and the Journal of Marketing Research.
Media outlets such as CBS News, Fast Company, the New York Times, Scientific American, Time, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post have covered his work.
Teaching and academic leadership
At the David Eccles School of Business, Professor Mishra has taught courses in machine learning in business, strategic marketing communications, and advertising to undergraduate, M.B.A., and master’s students. He also leads doctoral seminars on consumer decision-making and research methods.
Professor Mishra chairs the Eccles School’s AI Task Force and codirects the Initiative for Consumer Decision Making, an outreach program that supports research collaboration between companies and academics. He is a cofounder and organizer of the JDM Winter Symposium, an annual meeting of business, psychology, and economics scholars focused on judgment and decision-making.
In 2023, the University of Utah recognized Professor Mishra with its Leadership in Ethics Education Award. In 2026, the University named him a One-U Responsible AI Faculty Fellow.