Margaret Beier

Margaret E. Beier, Ph.D., is Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychological Sciences at Rice University and a member of the Industrial and Organizational Psychology research interest group. Her research focuses on lifelong learning and skill acquisition in the workplace, particularly the ability and motivational factors that support self-directed and self-regulated learning. She also examines how these factors contribute to success in organizational and educational settings.

Dr. Beier directs the Adult Skills and Knowledge Lab, or ASK Lab, at Rice University. Her work explores how adults develop, maintain, and apply knowledge and skills throughout their careers and across changing work environments.

She has served on two consensus study committees for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine: How People Learn II: Learners, Contexts, and Cultures and Are Generational Categories Meaningful Distinctions for Workforce Management? She also chaired the consensus committee responsible for the 2024 report Adult Learning in the Military Context.

Dr. Beier teaches undergraduate courses in psychological testing and personality theory and research. At the graduate level, she teaches seminars in industrial and organizational psychology, training, individual differences, and personnel psychology.