Katherine L. Milkman
Professor, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
bio:
Katherine Milkman is an award-winning professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a secondary appointment at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine. An engineer by training, her research draws on insights from economics and psychology to change consequential health, savings, and workplace behaviors for good. Her dozens of published articles in leading social science journals have reached a wide audience through frequent coverage in major media outlets such as NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Financial Times, and Harvard Business Review. Katherine co-directs the Behavior Change for Good Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania with Angela Duckworth, whose work is being chronicled by Freakonomics Radio. She is also a regular contributor to The Washington Post, writing about the behavioral economics of everyday life, and she hosts the popular podcast “Choiceology with Katy Milkman,” which demystifies the science of decision making.
Website: www.katherinemilkman.com
3 questions:
What aspects of this research agenda are you most excited about?
I’m most excited about running large field experiments to advance knowledge about how to effect positive behavior change.
Of all the work you have done, what project / paper is your personal favourite and why?
I love my work with Hengchen Dai and Jason Riis on the fresh start effect. I love it because I think better understanding when our motivation to tackle new things ebbs and flows is incredibly important to timing behavior change and because the fact that we constantly give ourselves a clean slate is incredibly uplifting.
Which is the one paper or book that you wish you had written (but have not)?
Paper: Ariely, Dan, and Klaus Wertenbroch. "Procrastination, deadlines, and performance: Self-control by precommitment." Psychological science 13.3 (2002): 219-224.
Book: Thaler, Richard H., and Cass R. Sunstein. Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness. Penguin, 2009.