Peer review is an academic process in which peers evaluate and rank the work of other researchers as a precursor to awarding funds for promising new research projects. The deliberative process is usually tucked away from outside viewers, but in "How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment," readers are given a glimpse of how these decisions are made.

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Michèle Lamont discusses what happens behind the closed doors of academic peer review and offers advice to researchers submitting funding proposals. Her new book, "How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment," is published by Harvard University Press.

Credit: National Science Foundation/Harvard University

Harvard University sociologist Michèle Lamont's new book "How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment," examines the normally secretive peer-review process in six academic disciplines: anthropology, economics, English literature, history, philosophy and political science. The book uncovers how reviewers think about which research projects to pursue and how much money to allocate for them.

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Michèle Lamont is Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies and Professor of Sociology and African and African American Studies, and Senior Adviser on Faculty Development and Diversity, Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University.

Credit: Ed Quinn