dr. Marleen Onwezen

About Marleen Onwezen

Marleen is a psychologist and engages daily with the question of why consumers make healthy and sustainable choices, and what methods can influence this behavior. In recent years, Marleen has been frequently invited to speak about consumer behavior. She finds it incredibly inspiring to discuss the irrational choices of consumers. Consumers say they want to eat healthier but do not; consumers who claim to value animal welfare but ignore all information about it and simply go BBQ-ing; consumers who believe they are making individual choices in the supermarket but are influenced by social norms; consumers who suddenly choose a vegetarian option when the default choice is changed. She inspires her audience by explaining how we can understand consumers and find ways to support sustainable and healthy choices.

Marleen Onwezen is a social psychologist. She studied in Tilburg and received her PhD on the role of emotions in sustainable choices in 2014 from Wageningen University. She has been working for over 12 years at Wageningen Economic Research as a senior researcher. She is an ambassador, expertise leader, and coordinator of consumer behavior at Wageningen University and Research. Additionally, she leads the game-changing initiative for informed consumers at NWA and is part of the core team for healthy and safe food systems at Wageningen Research. She serves on the scientific board of various companies to contribute ideas on how to stimulate sustainable and healthy choices.

Marleen has a large number of scientific publications to her name. Besides analyzing how consumers make choices, Marleen is also focused on increasing the impact of her work on society. She enjoys thinking about ways to accelerate food transitions. She also likes to share her research to explore ways to translate science into societal applications. Her motto is: ‘Science with impact’