About

Valerie Reyna is the Lois and Melvin Tukman Professor of Human Development at Cornell University, where she also serves as the Director of the Human Neuroscience Institute and Co-director of the Center for Behavioral Economics and Decision Research. Her research integrates brain and behavioral approaches to understand and improve judgment, decision making, and memory across the lifespan. Her recent work has focused on the neuroscience of risky decision making and its implications for health and well-being, especially in adolescents; applications of cognitive models and artificial intelligence to understanding genetics; and medical and legal decision making. She is a developer of fuzzy-trace theory, a model of the relation between mental representations and decision making that has been widely applied in law, medicine, and public health. Dr. Reyna is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and a Fellow of several prestigious organizations, including the Society of Experimental Psychologists and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Her service includes roles on advisory panels for the National Science Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the National Academy of Sciences, as well as leadership positions in organizations dedicated to equal opportunity for minorities and women. She has also contributed to academic publishing as the editor of Developmental Review and as a member of editorial boards for leading journals in psychology and decision sciences.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Social psychology
• Computer science
• Geography
• Medicine

Selected publications

• Numeracy, gist, literal thinking and the value of nothing in decision making

  Nature Reviews Psychology · 2023 · 46 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Psychology
  • Computer Science
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Valerie P. Hans

  3 shared

• Rebecca K. Helm

  3 shared

• Stella Conte

  2 shared

• David G. James

  2 shared

• Peter J. Landolt

  2 shared

• Larry C. Wright

  2 shared

• Dacher Keltner

  1 shared

• Darin Brooks

  1 shared

Awards & honors

• Member of the National Academy of Medicine
• Fellow of the Society of Experimental Psychologists
• Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sc…
• Fellow of the Divisions of Experimental Psychology, Developm…
• Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science

Similar researchers at Cornell University

• Edward Bucklerh-182
• Robert Sternbergh-168
• John P. Mooreh-153
• Olivier Elementoh-150
• Andy Clarkh-142