Prof. dr. Ilja van Van Beest primary research interests lie in the domain of group and interpersonal processes with a specific focus on coalition formation, conflict detection, ostracism, fairness, deception, trust, emotions and symptom attribution. Notable awards are the best dissertation award of the Dutch society for social psychology for research on coalition formation, the Ig-nobel prize for research on symptom attribution.

Van Beest has been associate editor of the ISI journal Group Processes and Intergroup Relations. He is founding board member of the journal Behavioral Public Policy, and currently serves as  editor-in-chief of Social Influence.

Van Beest teaches/has taught courses on social psychology, social influence, interpersonal behavior, group dynamics, negotiation, and leadership. 

Prof. dr. Ilja van Beest obtained his PhD at Leiden University in 2001. He started his position as full professor of social psychology at Tilburg University in 2009.  He served two tems as department head of the department social psychology, and one terms as teaching director of the master social psychology.  He is a member of the Kurt Lewin Institute. At the KLI institute he currently helps out in the role of research director.