2017 Neff Public Lecture
Dr. Michael Ranney - UC-Berkeley
Raising Acceptance of Human-Caused Global Warming With Information
Short Bio
Professor Michael Ranney joined UC-Berkeley after serving as a post-doctoral fellow at Princeton's Cognitive Science Laboratory––which followed a PhD (and MS) in experimental cognitive psychology, which had followed undergraduate majors in microbiology (molecular/cellular/developmental biology) and psychology (although his initial publications were in applied physics). Ranney's research explores people's relative explanatory coherence/understanding as he seeks to foster the public's incorporation of challenging information––lately focusing on global climate change. His work (1) designs curricula, methods, and software to improve rational thinking and (2) offers simple, potent, public-policy-relevant representations (e.g., please visit HowGlobalWarmingWorks.org). Ranney was a Spencer Fellow of the National Academy of Education (and Spencer Foundation), is a Fellow of the Psychonomic Society, and was a University of California Regents' Junior Faculty Fellow. At Berkeley, he is head of the Reasoning Research Group, is past chair of SESAME (the Graduate Group in Science and Mathematics Education), and is a member of many faculties (beyond several involving the environment, such as InFEWS), including: Education, Psychology, SESAME, Cognitive Science (e.g., ICBS), and IPSR (the Institute of Personality and Social Research).