Stanford, CA: September 12, 2013 – The Center for the Advanced Study of
Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University today welcomed the 35
Fellows and eight visiting scholars who make up the Class of 2014.
Chosen through a rigorous selection process, the group represents some of
academia’s most innovative scholarship across these behavioral sciences:
anthropology, communication, economics, education, history, law, linguistics,
philosophy, political science, public health, psychiatry, psychology, science &
technology, and sociology. The scholars hail from 21 universities in the United
States, as well as from universities in Canada, England, and Sweden.
Fellows pursue their own research for the full academic year while contributing
to the CASBS community through weekly seminars, occasional public lectures,
and informal conversations over daily lunch.
Informal interaction, in particular, fosters the cross-pollination of ideas across
disparate fields of study, said CASBS Director Iris Litt, MD, herself a Fellow
(1985). “Fellows typically report an expansion in their thinking, and sometimes
even a new approach to their research,” she said. “The launch of the field of
behavioral economics, attributed in large measure to our own Daniel
Kahneman, is an excellent example of this.” Kahneman, a Fellow in psychology
(1978) received the Nobel prize in economic science in 2002.
During their CASBS year, Fellows address some of the most pressing problems
of our day, seeking insight and innovation that will advance humanity at all
levels – whether on the international stage, the workplace, or within the
individual psyche. Among planned areas of study for members of this year’s
class:• the notion of peoplehood and its implications in the Israel/Palestine conflict;
• the manufacture of rayon – a textile marketed as ‘green,’ yet highly
dangerous to the people who make it and the environment;
• the economics of sexual orientation;
• psychobiological triggers of mania in an individual;
• the development of creativity in adolescence;
• implications of copyright law and emerging technologies;
• where data and behavior intersect.
About the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
Since its founding in 1954, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral
Sciences at Stanford University has brought together distinguished scholars in
the behavioral sciences to confront societal problems worldwide. The Center is
honored to count among its Fellows 22 Nobel laureates, 14 Pulitzer Prize
winners, and 44 MacArthur Fellows, in addition to hundreds of members of the
Fellows have helped develop new policies and practices in fields as diverse as
medicine, education, electoral politics, crime prevention, and international
development. And they’ve played key roles in starting new interdisciplinary
fields such as behavioral economics.
For ongoing news and events about CASBS, please visit  and follow on Twitter, @CASBSStanford .
Here are the 2013-2014 Fellows, listed by field of study:
• Ilana Gershon, Indiana University
During her time at the Center, cultural anthropologist Ilana Gershon is
studying how people agree upon ethical standards when using new
media in the course of hiring and firing. Her previous work explored why
Samoan migrants experience different ways of being culture-bearers in
New Zealand and the United States.
• Lawrence Rosen, Princeton University
Anthropology Fellow Lawrence Rosen will work on his latest book, Drawn
From Memory: Arab Lives Unremembered, a study of the intellectual lives
of four ordinary Moroccans he has known many years. It analyzes the
concept of memory in settings of the history, rural and urban
development, religious, and ethnic relationships of the country.Communication
• Byron Reeves, Stanford University
In his scholarship, Byron Reeves balances academic pursuit and
business entrepreneurship. One area of focus is psychological processing
of media in the areas of attention, emotions, learning, and physiological
responses. He is working on the application of multi-player game
technology to behavior change and the conduct of serious work.
• Natalia Roudakova, University of California, San Diego
Natalia Roudakova’s work bridges cultural anthropology to political
communication and comparative media studies. She notes, “Although
there is some tradition of ethnography in journalism studies,
anthropologists have not played much of a role in the field of political
communication.” Her research addresses that gap.
• Ali Ahmed, Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study
During his fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral
Sciences, economist Ali Ahmed will focus on addressing research
questions related to economics of sexual orientation. While most of his
research is in the field of economics of discrimination, he also studies
behavioral economics, labor economics, and economics of religion.
• Petra Moser, Stanford University
Returning Fellow Petra Moser’s research at CASBS will examine the
effects of copyright policies: Do stronger copyright terms increase the
price of books? And how do stronger copyright terms influence diffusion?
• Sarah Freedman, University of California, Berkeley
Returning Fellow Sarah Freedman will conduct data analysis and write
about a five-year research project, The Development of Ethical Civic Actors
in Divided Societies: Northern Ireland, South Africa, and the United States.
Of her work she says, “I am interested in linguistic analyses that provide
windows into how varied students think about civic participation.”
• Ethan M. Pollock, Brown University
Ethan Pollock’s current research project tells the history of the Russian
bathhouse to gain new perspectives on Russian identity, traditional and
modern notions of health & hygiene, and the evolution of ideas about
community and sociability. (Under contract, Oxford University Press.)• Bruce J. Schulman, Boston University
Bruce J. Schulman’s CASBS project, “‘Are We A Nation?’: The Birth of
the Modern United States,” explores the transformation of American
nationhood between 1896 and 1929–the era in which the United States
emerged as a world power, international economic leader, and reservoir
for displaced persons from around the globe.
• Peter Stansky, Stanford University
Peter Stansky’s scholarly aim is to better understand Britain, mostly in
the areas where culture, literature, art, and politics meet, as in his
collection of essays, From William Morris to Sergeant Pepper. His current
project is a study of Edward Upward, the least-known member of the
group who gathered around W. H. Auden.
• Molly S. Van Houweling, University of California, Berkeley
Molly Van Houweling’s research focuses on copyright law’s implications
for new information technologies, and vice versa. One strand of her
research explores how legal rules, designed to regulate sophisticated
commercial interests, affect unsophisticated individuals empowered by
information technology. She is currently working on a book, tentatively
entitled Property’s Intellect.
• Roger Levy, University of California, San Diego
Through study at the intersection of linguistics, cognitive science, and
game theory, Roger Levy hopes his work will help us better understand
how speakers and listeners are able to reason about each other to
achieve effective communication. He will also study the language of
children to better understand how language learning takes place.
• Judith Tonhauser, Ohio State University
Judith Tonhauser’s project, Content and context in the study of meaning
variation, is based on the idea that human languages may differ in their
morphological inventories and syntactic structures, but nevertheless
convey comparable meanings.
• John M. Doris, Washington University
John M. Doris works at the intersection of psychology, cognitive science,
and philosophical ethics. He is finishing work on a new book, Talking to
Our Selves: Reflection, Skepticism, and Agency, and beginning work on a collection of his papers, Character Trouble: Undisciplined Essays on
Persons and Circumstance, both to appear with Oxford University Press.
• Sam Fleischacker, University of Illinois at Chicago
Sam Fleischacker plans to use his time at CASBS to examine a series of
philosophical issues raised by the Israel/Palestine conflict. He’s
particularly interested in the notion of peoplehood, the link (if any)
between peoplehood and territory, and the question of whether states
should represent or foster a people’s identity.
• Alison Renteln, University of Southern California
Alison Renteln’s research project focuses on various public policy
incentives for civic engagement. “As part of this study, I will undertake
comparative analyses of Good and Bad Samaritan laws and mandatory
voting systems,” she says. “I am particularly interested in crossdisciplinary scholarship on empathy as it relates to political participation
and humanitarian assistance.”
• Robert Van Houweling, University of California, Berkeley
Robert Van Houweling plans to complete a book about political
repositioning. It focuses on how voters react when politicians change
their policy positions, and in turn, considers the impact voters’ reactions
have on candidate strategies. He has on-the-ground experience as well,
having served as a legislative assistant to Senator Thomas Daschle.
• Michael D. Ward, Duke University
Political scientist Michael D. Ward’s primary interests are in
international relations (spanning democratization, globalization,
international commerce, military spending, as well as international
conflict and cooperation), political geography, as well as mathematical
and statistical methods.
• Erik Wibbels, Duke University
Political scientist Erik Wibbels’s CASBS project aims to develop
innovative approaches to understand why the quality of governance
varies across the geography of countries—why, for instance, central
authorities in places like Afghanistan and Mexico are able to govern some
parts of their countries but not others.
• Albert Rothenberg, Harvard University
Returning Fellow Albert Rothenberg is studying the development of
creativity and creative thinking during adolescence. It’s an extension of
Studies in the Creative Process, a project where he serves as principal
investigator and which has carried out research on creativity in
literature, art, psychotherapy, and science.
• David Dunning, Cornell University
While at CASBS, experimental psychologist David Dunning plans to work
on a book examining the personal to societal implications of
ignorance. He says he is particularly interested in “the fact that people
largely fail to know where their knowledge and expertise end – and their
• Sheri L. Johnson, University of California, Berkeley
Sheri Johnson’s research focus during her CASBS year is
psychobiological triggers of mania. “I like that my work bridges many
different paradigms to help understand why people with bipolar disorder
develop symptoms on a given day,” she says. “I also really love the
process of working with collaborators and with students to develop
• Lee Jussim, Rutgers University
Lee Jussim’s research looks at the relationships between social
perception and social reality. His primary interests are interpersonal
processes, judgment and decision-making, prejudice and stereotyping,
self and identity, and social cognition.
• Jon A. Krosnick, Stanford University
Returning Fellow and social psychologist Jon Krosnick’s top priority for
his Fellowship year is to finish his book reviewing 100 years of research
on how to design questionnaires optimally. He researches attitude
formation, change, and survey research methods. For 15 years, he has
researched the American public’s views of global warming.
• Nilam Ram, Penn State University
Nilam Ram plans to write about how real-time assessments and analytics
can empower people to use data about their own behavioral patterns in
order to make changes that will help them have a better life. These
“personalized interventions … can be deployed at population scale,” he
• Simine Vazire, Washington University
While at CASBS, Simine Vazire will work on research related to selfknowledge, exploring these questions: How well do we know ourselves?
How can we improve self-knowledge? And what are the consequences of
poor self-knowledge? She will also be working on research methodology:
• Paul Blanc, University of California, San Francisco
Paul Blanc continues his research on the viscose rayon industry
and occupational disease. He says the material is linked to widespread,
often lethal disease among workers and environmental degradation.
Yet, “Rayon is even marketed as a renewable green product,” he says,
“because carbon disulfide is mixed with cellulose, a renewable resource.”
• Merwyn (Mitch) Greenlick, Oregon Health and Science
Returning Fellow Mitch Greenlick will work on a book on the Oregon
Legislature. From the time of his swearing-in, he recorded his reactions
to the Legislature, forming a body of work spanning six legislative
sessions; over time, perspective emerges from that of a minority
freshman to that of a senior committee chair in the majority.
• Heather Munroe-Blum, McGill University
Heather Munroe-Blum will focus on how public policy in science and
education contribute to a nation’s social and economic success within
the larger global context – with particular attention to young people. It’s
a natural extension of her work advising governments on the role that
progressive, evidence-based public policy plays in enriching society and
Science and Technology Studies
• Steve Woolgar, Oxford University
Sociologist Steve Woolgar’s main current research projects include
mundane governance, the social dynamics of provocation, and the utility
of radical academic ideas for business and management. He is interested
in technology and organizational change, branding and brand
development, the rise of ethics, and visualization and evidence in
• Elizabeth Bruch, University of MichiganElizabeth Bruch plans to explore mate search strategies and mate choice
behavior on online dating sites. She writes, “One central focus for me is
how search strategies and contact behavior differs across dating markets
… and also how people learn who is in their ‘league’ based on their
interactions on the site.”
• Cynthia Fuchs Epstein, Graduate Center of the City University of New York
Cynthia Fuchs Epstein returns to the Center for a third fellowship to
work on the upcoming book, The Difficulty of Doing Good: Law Students’
Commitment to Careers in the Public Interest. Her work looks at the use of
categories and distinctions in social life, with a focus on their impact on
women and minorities.
• Barbara Heyns, New York University
Returning Fellow Barbara Heyns studies the sociology of education,
social stratification, sociology of childhood, social policy, adolescence and
the life cycle, and quantitative methodology.
• Ching Kwan Lee, University of California, Los Angeles
In research for her upcoming book, Ching Kwan Lee poses the question,
“what is the peculiarity of Chinese capital in Africa?” In order to identify
what is Chinese (not just capitalist), she compares Chinese and nonChinese foreign investors in two core economic sectors in Zambia:
copper mining and construction.
• Elaine Wethington, Cornell University
Medical sociologist Elaine Wethington plans to work on a book about the
potential for translational sociology, focusing on the sociology of mental
health and illness and the life course. Her research interests are in the
areas of stress, protective mechanisms of social support, aging and the
life course, and translational research methods.
Complete bios of each Fellow, along with links to their work, may be viewed
Visiting scholars and practitioners in the Class of 2013-2014 include
• Physicist, applied mathematician and computer scientist Eric Bonabeau
of Icosystem Corporation,
• Retired publisher, author, and journalist Howard M. Epstein, is working
on Death or Survival: The Battle for the Lives of French Jewish Children in
World War II.
• Poet, political consultant, and computer scientist Tung-Hui Hu is a
scholar of new media.
• Ellen Konar is a social organizational psychologist-turnedentrepreneurial data scientist and industry executive.
Literary agent and retired publisher Donald Lamm serves as editorial
consultant to this year’s class. He is particularly interested in the
survival of the book in an age of information overload.
• Arnold Milstein, MD will focus on formulating testable methods to
increase the psychological nuance of innovations in care delivery
designed to lower healthcare spending.
• Professor and artist Julia Rothenberg looks forward to pursuing her art
“in the gorgeous and haunting landscapes of Stanford and the hills and
meadows of CASBS.”
• Jane A. Shaw, the dean of Grace Cathedral, is writing about renewed
interest in mysticism in the US and UK; separately she is working on a
collaboration with actress/playwright Anna Deavere Smith.
• Sociologist Anna Sparrman is researching the intertwinement of children,
childhood, material culture, sexuality, and consumption from a
contemporary, everyday perspective.
• Paul Wise, MD, is investigating U.S. and international child health policy,
particularly the provision of technical innovation in resource-poor areas of the world.