Some graduate students grind out their dissertations in late-night sessions, alone with their thoughts in the wasted fluorescent glow of a windowless lab. Others spend those same hours drinking in bars, “discussing” their thesis over a round or drinks or three.

Leonard Lee, a recent graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, managed to do both at the same time. A few times a week for about six months, Mr. Lee spent his evenings at an on-campus watering hole, either the Thirsty Ear or the Muddy Charles, buying fellow patrons beer, as part of a study of taste.

In an interview Dr. Lee, now an instructor at the Columbia University business school, swore that this exercise was not a ruse to meet women or an effort to stick M.I.T with his bar tab.

And he has a published paper to back him up: “The Influence of Expectation, Consumption and Revelation on Preferences for Beer,” appearing in the December issue of Psychological Sciences, one of the field’s leading research journals.