Karen Sobel-Lojeski

Dr. Karen Sobel Lojeski is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Technology and Society at Stony Brook University. Her current research focus is the impact of technology on people including how technology impacts educational and business performance as well as overall well-being at the cognitive and emotional levels. Dr. Lojeski’s research draws on social science, neuroscience, cognitive science, economics, industrial and organizational psychology as well as innovation, creativity, and contemplation research.

In her first book, “Uniting the Virtual Workforce: Transforming Leadership and Innovation in the Globally Integrated Enterprise”, published by John Wiley & Sons in April, 2008 and part of the Microsoft Executive Leadership series, Dr. Lojeski describes her award-winning discovery of Virtual Distance. This new phenomenon, a perceived distance that grows when we rely heavily on communication technology, results in major changes to learning, business performance, and a person’s ability to develop close personal relationships. Dr. Lojeski mathematically modeled this phenomenon with the development of the Virtual Distance Index, a tool that can now be used to quantitatively measure and predict Virtual Distance and its effects.

Her research has yielded new insights into the nature of our societal development and the need to pay as much if not more attention to our “people-based world” as we do to our “technology-based world” to maintain and grow a healthy and civil society.