Ellen Peters is an American academic and the Philip H. Knight Chair, Director of the Center for Science Communication Research, and Professor both in the School of Journalism and Communication and in Psychology at the

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...

. She is also an associate in the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact. Prior to moving to the University of Oregon in 2019, she spent nine years in the psychology department at The

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

where she was a Distinguished Professor. She also directed the Decision Sciences Collaborative in the College of Arts and Science and was a full member of the Cancer Control Center in Ohio State's Medical Center.

Career

Peters received two B.A.s in Systems Engineering and Marketing from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

's Management and Technology Program. She earned her Ph.D. in Psychology from the

with

Paul Slovic Paul Slovic (born 1938 in Chicago) is a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon and the president oDecision Research Decision Research is a collection of scientists from all over the nation and in other countries that study decision- ...

as advisor. She began her professional career as a research scientist at Decision Research in Eugene, Oregon and was a senior research scientist when she moved to

in 2010. There, from 2010 to 2012, she was an Associate Professor without tenure, becoming Full Professor with tenure in 2012 and Distinguished Professor of Psychology in 2017. In addition to her psychology professorship, she was a courtesy professor of General Internal Medicine (2015–2019), Rheumatology (2015–2019), and Marketing (2017–2019). In 2019, she joined the University of Oregon to be Philip H. Knight Chair and the first permanent director of their Center for Science Communication Research. Peters' specialties are in judgment and decision making and risk and science communication. In particular, she conducts decision-making and communication research with respect to affect,

numeracy Numeracy is the ability to understand, reason with, and to apply simple numerical concepts. The charity National Numeracy states: "Numeracy means understanding how mathematics is used in the real world and being able to apply it to make the bes ...

science communication Science communication is the practice of informing, educating, raising awareness of science-related topics, and increasing the sense of wonder about scientific discoveries and arguments. Science communicators and audiences are ambiguously def ...

, and adult aging. She collaborated on the development of the

affect heuristic The affect heuristic is a heuristic, a mental shortcut that allows people to make decisions and solve problems quickly and efficiently, in which current emotion—fear, pleasure, surprise, etc.—influences decisions. In other words, it is a type ...

and is a leading scholar in the study of numeracy in decision making including publishing Innumeracy in the Wild: Misunderstanding and Misusing Numbers in 2020. with Oxford University Press. She is known both for her contributions to basic research on affect, numeracy, and risky decision-making, and for translational research on communicating health risks and improving medical decisions and policies. Featured in ''

The Philadelphia Inquirer ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' is a daily newspaper headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The newspaper's circulation is the largest in both the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley metropolitan region of Southeastern Pennsy ...

'' and ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', her work has engaged the public widely. She has published op-eds including on obsessing over coronavirus statistics in ''The'' ''New York Times'' and on helping the public figure out tricky pandemic statistics in ''

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ''The Atlanta Journal-Constitution'' is the only major daily newspaper in the metropolitan area of Atlanta, Georgia. It is the flagship publication of Cox Enterprises. The ''Atlanta Journal-Constitution'' is the result of the merger between ...

''. Peters has worked extensively with federal agencies and other groups to advance decision and communication sciences. Since 2009, she has worked with the National Cancer Institute as a member of the group on Cognitive, Affective, and Social Processes in health Research (CASPhR) in the Behavioral Research Program. She also was a voting member and then chair of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Risk Communication Advisory Committee (2007–2009, 2011–2013). She was a member of the Committee on the Science of Science Communication: A Research Agenda, The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine from 2015 to 2017 and wrote a commissioned paper for the then-Institute of Medicine on the implications of numeracy for the Affordable Care Act. Peters has served as president of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making and she is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Psychological Association (APA), the Association for Psychological Science (APS), and the Society for Experimental Social Psychology (SESP).

Honors

She received an NIH Group Merit Award for exceptional advances in integrating cognitive, affective, and social processes into cancer control research, and was the first American to win the Jane Beattie Scientific Recognition Award for innovative contributions to decision research.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Peters, Ellen 1966 births Living people American women psychologists University of Oregon faculty Ohio State University faculty University of Pennsylvania alumni University of Oregon alumni Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 21st-century American women