Director, Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies, USC
Joe Árvai is the Director, Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies at USC. Prior to this role, Dr. Árvai served as the Max McGraw Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan. In this role, he was jointly appointed between the School for Environment & Sustainability and the Ross School of Business. Joe is an internationally recognized expert in the risk and decisions sciences; his research has two main areas of emphasis: First, Joe and his research group conduct experiments focused on advancing our understanding of how people process information and make decisions, with a specific emphasis on how people make tradeoffs. Second, Joe and his group develop and test decision-aiding tools and approaches in service of the triple-boom-line. Joe’s research is applied, and accounts for decision-making by a broad spectrum of public and stakeholder groups, as well as by technical experts, business leaders, and policy makers. His work also focuses on choices made by people individually, and when working in groups. Likewise, he conducts his research across a wide range of contexts, ranging from corporate strategy development, to consumer choice and policy-making. In addition to his academic work, Joe served for six years as a member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Chartered Science Advisory Board, and he is a current member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences’ Board on Environmental Change and Society.