![](https://www.macmillanspeakers.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Leidy-Klotz-SQUARE-scaled.jpg)
Leidy Klotz
Leidy Klotz
Leidy Klotz is an award-winning professor, international speaker, and the acclaimed author of Subtract, whose groundbreaking research – published in both Nature and Science–has shifted our understanding of how to approach problems and create change. Leidy knows design–the craft of changing things from how they are to how we want them to be. Which, he reminds us, is something we all do every day.
Leidy has given more than 100 invited talks for organizations and universities including Stanford, MIT, and every member of the Ivy League (except Yale). Hidden Brain (NPR), Freakonomics, and The Atlantic have interviewed Leidy. And he has written for The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Scientific American, and The Washington Post.
An experienced educator, Leidy has taught thousands of students as a professor at the University of Virginia, including 21 Ph.D. advisees whose designs and teaching shape the world. Diversity and inclusion are core tenets of Leidy’s work. Groups underrepresented in their respective fields make up more than three quarters of his advisees.
Leidy Klotz is the Copenhaver Associate Professor at the University of Virginia. There, he is appointed in the Schools of Engineering, Architecture, and Business. His wide-ranging research is filling in unexplored overlaps between design and behavioral science. For this interdisciplinary expertise, Klotz has earned a highly-selective CAREER award from the National Science Foundation, as well as one of the very first awards through the NSF’s INSPIRE program. He has been awarded over ten million dollars in competitive research funding; has published around 70 peer-reviewed articles; and was promoted ahead of schedule.
Academic Initiatives
Klotz has received multiple institution-level teaching awards for his classes and close work with undergraduates. He’s been nationally recognized as one of 40-under-40 professors who inspire. He facilitates lifelong learning for thousands of former students via Facebook and Twitter. And, Klotz was an early adopter of massive open online courses. He advises influential decision-makers that straddle academia and practice. For example, working with the Departments of Energy and Homeland Security, the National Institutes of Health, Resources for the Future, and ideas42.
In less than a decade, Klotz has built a research-to-practice community around his scholarship. Klotz chaired a year-long expert panel on design behavior for sustainability, convened by the journal Nature Sustainability. At the University of Virginia, he founded and directs the Convergent Behavioral Science Initiative. This initiative engages and supports dozens of faculty and students doing applied, interdisciplinary research. In such roles, Klotz is bringing together scholars, funders, media, and practitioners in order to advance behavioral science for design.
Book Cover | Details |
---|---|
Trade Paperback
|
Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less
Humans overlook the other kind of change: We don’t subtract. We pile on “to-dos” but don’t consider “stop-doings.” We create incentives for high performance, but don’t get rid of obstacles to our goals. Whether we’re making cities, sandwiches, or strategic plans, subtracting is harder to think of and harder to follow through with. Blending behavioral science and design, this talk offers a scientific appreciation of why we underuse subtraction―and how to access its untapped potential. By learning to use the counterintuitive approach of subtracting, we can revolutionize not just our day-to-day lives, but our work across every field and industry.
“For new year’s resolutions, is it better to add or subtract?”
“Midweek Reset: The Power of Subtraction”
Read Leidy’s scholarly and peer-reviewed articles.
“From Designing a House to Editing Text, Sometimes Less Is More”
Learn more about Leidy’s course on sustainability on Coursera.
Visit Leidy Klotz’s personal website.
“Leidy Klotz’s talk changes the world you live in, revealing opportunities you didn’t even know were there.”
— Jonathan Barzilay, Chief Operating Officer, PBS“Leidy’s presentation was amazing! Especially, in the way he connected with our leaders, both days, and personalized the concepts for them.”
— Anita Jensen, SVP, Organizational Learning & Development, Jefferson Health“We’re very happy and grateful for the highly insightful and entertaining talk Leidy gave, and so is our audience who has given us wonderful feedback for it!”
— Laura de Wolf, Director Conferences & International Projects, Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute“Leidy’s keynote did exactly what we hoped it would: prompted new thinking and discussion about how we can apply what he presented!”
— Jennifer Axsom Adler, USPAA“It’s human nature to try solving problems by adding a step or an extra feature, but that may not always be the right answer, and this is particularly true when working with technology.”
— Mark Spykerman, Chief Information Officer, Amerisourcebergen Corp.“Leidy Klotz pinpoints a gaping hole in our mental math.”
— Adam Grant, author of Think Again, Wharton Professor