Ellen Peters

Ellen Peters
Name	Ellen Peters
Birth date	1965
Birth place	United States
Nationality	American
Fields	Decision science; Risk communication; Cognitive psychology
Workplaces	University of Oregon; Ohio State University; Carnegie Mellon University
Alma mater	Ohio State University; University of Minnesota
Known for	Research on risk literacy; communication of numeric information; decision making under uncertainty

Ellen Peters is an American cognitive psychologist and decision scientist known for empirical and theoretical work on risk communication, numeracy, and decision making under uncertainty. She has held faculty positions at major research universities and directed interdisciplinary centers focusing on judgment and decision science, health communication, and public policy. Her scholarship bridges experimental psychology, behavioral decision theory, medical decision making, and applied communication across health, legal, and public affairs domains.

Early life and education

Peters received her undergraduate education at Ohio State University where she studied psychology, cognitive science, and related topics under influences from faculty associated with judgment and decision making traditions such as Herbert A. Simon-inspired cognition and information processing approaches. She completed graduate studies at the University of Minnesota in psychology, training in experimental methods, psychometrics, and risk perception research connected to labs that produced work on heuristics and biases associated with scholars like Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. Her doctoral work integrated experimental paradigms from cognitive psychology, psychophysical scaling techniques, and applied problems in medical decision making linked to institutions such as Mayo Clinic and public health agencies.

Academic career

Peters began her academic career with faculty appointments at institutions including Carnegie Mellon University and later returned to Ohio State University before joining the faculty at the University of Oregon. She served as director of interdisciplinary centers that convened researchers from psychology, communication studies, public health, and medical schools to address applied decision problems, partnering with organizations such as the National Institutes of Health and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Her university roles combined teaching advanced seminars in cognitive and social psychology, mentoring doctoral students in judgment and decision making, and administering graduate programs that interfaced with law schools, business schools, and public policy programs including collaborations with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health modelers and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health networks.

Research and contributions

Peters's research program centers on how people understand and use numeric and probabilistic information in decisions across health, legal, and consumer settings. She has produced influential experimental findings on numeracy, demonstrating that individual differences in numeric competence predict comprehension of absolute and relative risk communicated in formats such as frequencies, percentages, and visual aids. Her work on risk communication evaluated graphical tools—such as icon arrays, bar graphs, and cumulative frequency displays—tested against benchmarks derived from perceptual psychology and psychophysics developed in traditions linked to researchers at Bell Labs and psychology departments affiliated with Stanford University and University of California, Berkeley. She has advanced theory by integrating dual-process frameworks inspired by Keith Stanovich and Jonathan Evans with evidence on affective influences drawn from scholarship by Paul Slovic on the affect heuristic.

Applied contributions include randomized trials assessing decision aids for patients facing treatment choices in oncology settings that involved collaborations with clinical investigators at institutions like the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and networked practice groups within the American Cancer Society. Peters has advised policymakers and agencies on best practices for communicating probabilistic information during public health emergencies such as influenza outbreaks and vaccination campaigns, interfacing with experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization. Methodologically, she has championed transparent reporting standards, preregistration practices popularized by researchers at Open Science Framework communities, and reproducible experimental protocols aligning with norms promoted by the Association for Psychological Science.

Her publications span leading outlets in psychology, health communication, and behavioral medicine, contributing to cumulative knowledge on cognitive vulnerabilities and interventions that enhance risk literacy among diverse populations, including older adults, low-literacy groups, and decision-makers in high-stakes organizational contexts such as courts and regulatory agencies like the Food and Drug Administration.

Awards and honors

Peters has received recognition from professional organizations including fellowships and awards from the Association for Psychological Science, the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, and the American Psychological Association divisions that honor contributions to applied cognition and health psychology. She has been funded by competitive grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health for research on numeracy and decision support tools, and she has been invited to deliver named lectures at venues such as the Royal Society-affiliated symposia and leading universities across North America and Europe. Institutional awards have acknowledged her mentorship of junior scholars and service in developing interdisciplinary curricula at research universities.

Personal life and advocacy

Outside academia, Peters has participated in public engagement efforts to improve public understanding of statistical information, collaborating with science journalists and media organizations including editorial teams at outlets like The New York Times, NPR, and The Washington Post to translate findings for broader audiences. She has served on advisory panels for nonprofit organizations focused on health literacy, working with groups such as America's Health Insurance Plans and advocacy networks connected to patient safety initiatives pioneered by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Peters maintains an active role in mentoring through national programs allied with the National Postdoctoral Association and contributes to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives within the psychology and communication research communities.

Category:American psychologists Category:Decision researchers