Research Centers & Projects
Featured Research News
Meet the Social Sciences Faculty
- Professor of Economics
Luciano Pomatto
I am interested in how people think, or should think, in situations of uncertainty. This line of research tackles a basic problem: What are the consequences of accepting probability as a language for making predictions about the future?"
- Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience; Allen V. C. Davis and Lenabelle Davis Leadership Chair, Caltech Brain Imaging Center; Director, Caltech Brain Imaging Center
Dean Mobbs
Caltech allows researchers to be risky. Risk is an important part of science. It's where discovery occurs."
- Assistant Professor of Economics
Pawel Janas
I study how financial systems and public policy shape economic outcomes. At Caltech, collaboration among economists, historians, and data scientists helps uncover how institutions influence economic growth over time."
- Assistant Professor of Economics
Axel Niemeyer
I specialize in mechanism design, the science of economic rule-making. Economics is usually concerned with analyzing existing economic institutions. Mechanism design flips the direction of inquiry: how should institutions be designed to best attain a given set of social or economic goals?"
- Kay Sugahara Professor of Social Sciences and Statistics
Jonathan N. Katz
Money is very important in politics, but all the previous studies about campaign finance were restricted to relatively large donors, leading to a skewed picture of this important political activity. Given changes in technology, smaller donors are becoming both more numerous and important."
- Bren Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Biology
Ralph Adolphs
Caltech's small size really fosters interdisciplinary science. I exchange ideas with people from different fields when walking between my lab and my office, and I often run late to lunch at the Athenaeum because I catch up with so many students and faculty who I run into along the way."
- Rea A. and Lela G. Axline Professor of Economics
Marina Agranov
There are good reasons to do experiments. Applying theories in the real world before testing them, and ruining someone’s real life, seems too high a cost."
- Professor of Economics; William H. Hurt Scholar
Kirby Nielsen
Experiments are starting to get incorporated into mainstream economics but are still a relatively new tool. Caltech has been a powerhouse in experimental economics from the beginning, and it's so exciting to join the tradition."
- Robert Kirby Professor of Behavioral Economics; T&C Chen Center for Social and Decision Neuroscience Leadership Chair; Director, T&C Chen Center for Social and Decision Neuroscience
Colin F. Camerer
One of the hallmarks of Caltech's HSS division, besides scientific excellence, is that people here wander and end up working on things in very unusual combinations."
- Professor of Political Science
Alexander V. Hirsch
There are other institutions that are wonderful at teaching and wonderful at research. But at Caltech, it seems to me that to be wonderful at teaching means that you teach the students what the frontier of research is—that teaching and research are not different things."
