Most professors have mixed feelings about participating on peer-review panels. It's an honor. It helps the discipline. It's a waste of time. It's biased. Michele Lamont wanted to know whether it works: specifically, whether, and how, professors identify excellence. So the multi-titled Harvard University scholar--professor of European studies, sociology, and African and African-American studies, and senior adviser on faculty development and diversity--persuaded five organizations that make national grants and fellowships (two of whose boards asked for anonymity) to allow her to interview panelists (who came from multiple disciplines) and sit in on their deliberations. This article presents an interview with Lamont. Born in Canada and a veteran of prestigious universities in the United States and Europe, Lamont has always been interested in how cultural conditions shape thinking about the nature of work. In this interview, Lamont talked about her new book, How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment (Harvard University Press), which details her two years studying peer review in six fields in the humanities and social sciences.