Science Matters Brown Bag Lunch and Learn: Tools for Thinking About Risk During the Pandemic
This program was presented live via Zoom on June 17, 2020 12:00-1:00 CDT. About the Science Matters Brown Bag Series: Science Matters Brown Bags are monthly programs co-sponsored by the Linda Hall Library and the Kansas City Public Library. They will focus on science-related topics that impact Kansas Citians. The program: Using one of the universe’s most complex systems- the human brain- each of us makes tens of thousands of decisions every day. Each choice involves fascinating and complex cognitive processes such as attention, perception, and memory that occur at lightning speed and often without our even noticing. During a time of heightened risk and sometimes overwhelming information, such as the current pandemic, that decision making process is pushed to extremes. Dr. Tim Pleskac, Professor of Psychology at the University of Kansas, will present what we know about the psychology of decision making and what that can tell us about how people think about and perceive risk in the current pandemic. The speaker: Tim Pleskac is a Professor of Psychology where he directs the KU Behavioral Science Laboratory. He studies how people make judgments and decisions; how these processes shape behavior at the individual, group, and organizational level; and how we can help people make better judgments and decisions. He investigates these questions with computational modeling and methods from the behavioral and neurosciences. His work is well recognized, winning the Young Investigator Award from the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, the Scientific Recognition Award from the European Association for Decision Making, and the National Science Foundation’s CAREER award. He is also the author of Taming Uncertainty, published by MIT Press in 2019. When he is not at his desk, you can find him running, biking, rowing, or out in the woods fishing or hunting. In a parallel world, he owns a bike shop somewhere in the Midwestern U.S.
