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Research

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Individual adaptation, resilience, and health

 We seek to understand underlying constructs and decision making processes that people undergo in response to gradual and acute environmental change.
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Community adaptation and resilience

 This research aims to contribute to one of the most challenging aspects of environmental change adaptation – assessing and building the current capacity of communities and cities to plan and respond to impacts.
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Decision making and support

 We are interested in the development and testing of decision tools to promote informed decision-making in the face of acute natural hazards and gradual environmental change.
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Climate mitigation and energy

 This research aims to inform behaviorally realistic climate and energy programs in effort to combat deleterious effects of environmental change.

Decision Science

Decision science is an interdisciplinary field that draws upon the behavioral and social sciences, among other disciplines. Our research is about helping people become more resilient to adverse events and build more sustainable communities to meet the challenge of the risks of global environmental change. In the face of increasing threats to our environment and health, people need to be equipped with relevant information and realistic options. Using a behavioral decision science analytical approach, our research aims to inform the design of interventions, policies and programs that help people make more informed decisions. This approach involves: formal analysis, characterizing the choices a fully rational actor would take; descriptive research, examining how people actually behave in those circumstances; intervention research, designed to bridge the gap between the normative ideal and the descriptive reality. Applying this approach requires continuing collaboration with substantive experts (e.g. engineers, natural scientists, physical scientists, policy experts) to ensure the accuracy of the analysis and the feasibility of interventions, with social scientists to create attractive interventions and evaluate their success, and with decision makers to create options that they might find attractive.