Nicholas Epley specializes in social cognition — how people make inferences about other people's thoughts, intentions and capabilities. His experimental research focuses on exactly how people make such inferences, and how accurately they do so. Much of that research delves into the common mistakes that people make in attempting to read others' minds, and the consequences of such mistakes. This includes the tendency for people to use their own perceptions and mental states as a guide to interpreting the behavior of others, creating strong egocentric or self-centered biases in social cognitions.

Epley was a faculty member at Harvard University before joining the Chicago Graduate School of Business in 2005.