Katherine Milkman

Katy Milkman is a professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and holds a secondary appointment at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine. Her research explores ways that insights from economics and psychology can be harnessed to change consequential behaviors for good, such as savings, exercise, vaccination take-up and discrimination. In her TEDx talk, she describes some of her key findings on this topic.

Katy has received numerous awards for her research including an early career award from the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences. When under 30, Milkman was named one of the world’s top 40 business school professors under 40 by Poets and Quants and she was a finalist for the Thinkers 50 2017 Radar Thinker Award. Her dozens of published articles in leading social science journals such as Management Science, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and The Journal of Finance have reached a wide audience through regular coverage in major media outlets such as NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Financial Times, and Harvard Business Review. She also frequently writes about topics related to behavioral science for The Washington Post and Scientific American. In 2018, she began hosting Charles Schwab’s popular podcast “Choiceology with Katy Milkman,” which explores key lessons from behavioral economics about decision making. Her book How to Change: The Science of Getting From Where You are to Where You Want to Be is available now.

Katy has been recognized with many accolades for her ability to communicate ideas to students. She is a repeated recipient of the excellence in teaching award for the Wharton undergraduate division, was voted Wharton’s “Iron Prof” by the school’s MBA students for a PechaKucha-style presentation of her research, and has repeatedly been one of ten finalists for the Anvil Award for Wharton’s most outstanding MBA teacher.

She is the former president of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, an APS Fellow, and an associate editor at Management Science, where she has handled manuscripts about behavioral economics since 2013. She has worked with numerous organizations on research and/or consulting, including Humana, Google, Walmart, the U.S. Department of Defense, 24 Hour Fitness and the American Red Cross.

Katy co-directs the Behavior Change for Good Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania, whose work is being chronicled by Freakonomics Radio.

She received her undergraduate degree from Princeton University (summa cum laude) in Operations Research and Financial Engineering and her Ph.D. from Harvard University’s joint program in Computer Science and Business.

Awards and Honors

• Named a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, 2020
• The Robert B. Cialdini Prize from SPSP, 2020
• Award for the Best 2019 Academy of Management Journal Article, 2020
• William F. O’Dell Award for the Most Impactful 2012 Journal of Marketing Research Article, 2017
• Finalist for the Thinkers50 Radar Award, 2017
• Excellence in Teaching Award for the Undergraduate Division at Wharton, 2016
• Finalist for the Anvil Award for the Most Outstanding MBA Teacher at Wharton, 2015
• Elected Faculty Marshal for Wharton MBA Class of 2015, 2015
• Excellence in Teaching Award for the Undergraduate Division at Wharton, 2015
• Society for Judgment and Decision Making FABBS Early Career Award Winner, 2015
• Marketing Science Institute Young Scholar, 2015
• SSRN Honor: Author of One of the 10 Most Downloaded Papers of the Year, 2014
• Finalist for the Anvil Award for the Most Outstanding MBA Teacher at Wharton, 2014
• Finalist for the Paul E. Green Award for the Best 2012 Journal of Marketing Research Article, 2013
• Voted Winner of the Wharton “Iron Prof” Competition, 2013
• Dorinda and Mark Winkelman Distinguished Scholar Award, 2012
• Poets & Quants Selection: “World’s Best 40 B-School Professors under the Age of 40”, 2011
• The Wyss Award from Harvard Business School for Excellence in Doctoral Research, 2008
• The Willard Thorp Thesis Prize in American Studies from Princeton University, 2004
• The Lore von Jaskowsky Memorial Prize in Engineering from Princeton University, 2004
• Omega Rho Undergraduate Project Research Award from INFORMS, 2004