Barbara Mellers

In January 2011, Barbara Mellers was appointed as the 11th Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor. Mellers, a globally influential scholar of decision making, is the I. George Heyman University Professor. This appointment is shared between the Department of Psychology in the School of Arts and Sciences and the Department of Marketing in The Wharton School.

Mellers’ research examines the factors that influence judgments and decisions, including emotions, self-interest, past mistakes, sensitivities to risk and perceptions of fairness. She is an author of almost 100 articles and book chapters, co-editor of two books and a member of numerous prestigious editorial boards. She served as president of the Judgment and Decision Making Society, was a five-year National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator and has received major research support from the NSF.

She earned a Ph.D. in 1981 and an M.A. in 1978 in psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.A. in 1974, also in psychology from Berkeley.

Selected Publications:

• Mellers, B. A., Ungar, L., Baron, J., Ramos, J., Gurcay, B., Fincher, K., Scott, S., Moore, D., Atanasov, P., Swift, S., Murray, T., & Tetlock, P. (2014). Psychological strategies for winning a geopolitical forecasting tournament. Psychological Science, 25, 1106-1115.
• Mellers, B., Stone, E., Murray, T., Minster, A., Rohrbaugh, N., Bishop, M., Chen, E., Baker, J., Hou, Y., Horowitz, M., Ungar, L., & Tetlock, P.(2015). Identifying and cultivating superforecasters as a method of improving probabilistic predictions. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10, 267-281.
• Mellers, B., Stone, E., Atanasov, P., Rohrbaugh, N., Metz, S.E., Ungar, L., Bishop, M., Horowitz, M., Merkle, E. & Tetlock, P. (2015).The psychology of intelligence analysis: Drivers of prediction accuracy in world politics, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 21, 1-14.
• Mellers, B. & Tetlock, P. (2019). From discipline-centered rivalries to solution-centered science: Producing better probability estimates for policy-makers. American Psychologist, 74, 290-300.
• Mellers, B., Tetlock, P. & Arkes, H. (2019). Forecasting tournaments, epistemic humility and attitude depolarization, Cognition, 188, 19-26.

Education

• Bachelor's Degree University of California, Berkeley (1970 — 1974)
• Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Companies

• Chief Scientist Good Judgment, Inc. (2014)
• Professor at Wharton and Dept of Psychology The Wharton School (2010)
• Milton W. Terrill Chair of Business Administration University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business (2004 — 2010)
• Professor of Marketing and Organizational Behavior University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business (2001 — 2010)
• Visiting Scholar Russell Sage Foundation (2005 — 2006)
• Professor of Psychology The Ohio State University (1996 — 2001)
• Visiting Professor The Ohio State University (1995 — 1996)
• Assistant to Full Professor of Psychology University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business (1981 — 1995)