Messenger Lecturer: Sendhil Mullainathan
The Roman Family University Professor of Computation and Behavioral Science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business
Summary from Nomination:
Professor Mullainathan is a recipient of the MacArthur “Genius Grant,” has been designated a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum, was labeled a “Top 100 Thinker” by Foreign Policy Magazine, and was named to the “Smart List: 50 people who will change the world” by Wired Magazine (UK).experiments—to study social problems such as discrimination and poverty. He recently co-authored the book Scarcity: Why Having too Little Means so Much and writes regularly for the New York Times. Professor Mullainathan helped co-found a non-profit to apply behavioral science (ideas42), co-founded a center to promote the use of randomized control trials in development (the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab), serves on the board of the MacArthur Foundation, has worked in government in various roles, is affiliated with the NBER and BREAD, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.His current research uses machine learning to understand complex problems in human behavior, social policy, and especially medicine, where computational techniques have the potential to uncover biomedical insights from large-scale health data.