Professor Payal Sharma’s research lies at the intersection of management, psychology, and sociology and focuses on two streams. First, she examines meaning ascription in organizations, investigating how dynamics involving power, mistreatment, masculinity, and outcome-driven priorities shape how people interpret and understand themselves and their interactions with others. Second, she studies leadership in the context of trauma, exploring how leaders and organizations shape their members’ capacity to function and recover following combat exposure, workplace violence, and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). In addition, she writes about qualitative methods to support scholars employing these approaches. She is an award-winning educator whose teaching portfolio consists of courses on leadership development and power dynamics at work. She is also a frequent speaker to executive audiences across multiple sectors, whose talks center on helping people lead grounded and resilient work lives.