Rebecca Chae is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University. Her research interests lie in consumer behavior, focusing on two streams. Her first stream of research examines how time perception and the timing of interventions influence individual and societal wellbeing, with particular emphasis on motivation, health, and sustainability. Her second stream of research examines when technology-mediated experiences become psychologically real and how emerging technologies, including augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed reality, and artificial intelligence, alter fundamental consumer experiences. Chae's research is published in top journals including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Her work received the Best Talk Award at the Society for Consumer Psychology and the ACR/Sheth Foundation Dissertation Award.

At Santa Clara, Chae co-founded the Leavey Subject Pool and the Consumer Behavior Lab, and has served as the director for both. She connects with undergraduate, master's, and MBA students through various courses she has taught, including Principles of Marketing, Consumer Behavior, Tech-Driven Sensory Marketing, Consumer Behavior Research, and Analyzing Customers and Markets. She received the Leavey Teaching Award and was nominated for the Brutocao Award for exceptional teaching in her early career. Chae enjoys mentoring students for research in the lab. 

Chae earned her Ph.D. in business administration at the University of Michigan. She earned an M.S. in marketing from Columbia University and a B.S. in economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.