Dr. Paul Slovic
Professor
Department of Psychology University of Oregon
PAUL SLOVIC received his B.A. degree from Stanford University, and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in psychology from the University of Michigan. In 1976, Dr. Slovic co- founded the research institute Decision Research, which recently merged with the Oregon Research Institute. He has also been a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon since 1986. He and his colleagues worldwide have developed methods to describe risk perceptions and measure their impacts on individuals, industry, and society. His recent research examines “psychic numbing” and the failure to respond to global threats from genocide and nuclear war. Dr. Slovic is a past President of the Society for Risk Analysis and in 1991 received its Distinguished Contribution Award. In 1993, he received the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association. In 1995, he received the Outstanding Contribution to Science Award from the Oregon Academy of Science. He has received honorary doctorates from the Stockholm School of Economics (1996) and the University of East Anglia (2005). Dr. Slovic was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2015 and the National Academy of Sciences in 2016. He received the 2022 Bower Award and Prize, given by The Franklin Institute for foundational and theoretical contributions to the study of decision making. He has served on numerous committees of the National Academy of Sciences including those that produced the reports “Risk Assessment in the Federal Government” (1983), “Understanding Risk: Informing Decisions in a Democratic Society” (1996), and “Risk Analysis Methods for Nuclear War and Nuclear terrorism (2023).