Wändi Bruine de Bruin is the director of the USC Behavioral Science and Policy Initiative at the Schaeffer Institute, as well as Provost Professor of Public Policy, Psychology, and Behavioral Science at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy and USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. Her research uses behavioral science to understand how people perceive risks, how they process information about risks, and what motivates attitude and behavior change. She uses insights from behavioral science to infom policies about health, climate change, food insecurity, household finances, and other important policy topics. She has published more than 150 peer-reviewed publications on these topics. She is a Fellow of the Society for Risk Analysis, the Psychonomic Society, and the UK Academy of Social Sciences. She is an editorial board member for the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, Perspectives on Psychological Science, the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, Decision, Medical Decision Making, the Journal of Risk Research, and Psychology and Aging. She has served on the National Academy of Sciences committees on Communicating Science Effectively and on Respiratory Protection for the Public and Workers without Respiratory Protection Programs at their Workplaces as well as the Canadian Academies committee on Health Product Risk Communication. Among other things, her recent projects focus on how to simplify climate change communications, how to promote healthy and sustainable food choices though labeling, how to remove “sludge” and make healthcare run more smoothly, and how to better understand and address people’s experiences with food insecurity. She has also been using the Lloyd’s Register Foundation World Risk Poll in collaboration with international organizations to understand and inform people’s risk perceptions around the world.
View the full list of Wändi’s publications
“Enough With The Climate Jargon: Scientists Aim For Clearer Messages On Global Warming” [National Public Radio]
“The secret to getting people to eat more plant-based food” [Washington Post]
“Many Americans wrongly assume they understand what normal blood pressure is – and that false confidence can be deadly” [Conversation]
“People who are bad with numbers often find it hard to make ends meet, even if they are not poor” [Conversation]
“Why it’s so hard to get people [in the UK] to care about heat waves” [Fortune]