Baruch Fischhoff, PhD, is the recipient of the 2021 Sigma Xi William Procter Prize for blazing new ground in risk perception, risk communication, and decision science research. The Procter prize has been awarded since 1950 to a scientist who has made an outstanding contribution to scientific research and has demonstrated an ability to communicate the significance of this research to scientists in other disciplines. In acceptance of the award, he will present "Science Communication for the Masses of Scientists" at the 2021 Sigma Xi Annual Meeting and Student Research Conference.
Fischhoff is the Howard Heinz University Professor in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy and Institute for Politics and Strategy at Carnegie Mellon University. A graduate of the Detroit Public Schools, he earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics and psychology from Wayne State University and a master's and PhD in psychology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine. He has served as president of several organizations including the Society for Judgment and Decision Making and of the Society for Risk Analysis, the latter for which he received the 1991 Distinguished Achievement Award.
Fischhoff was founding chair of the Food and Drug Administration Risk Communication Advisory Committee, chaired the National Research Council Committee on Behavioral and Social Science Research to Improve Intelligence Analysis for National Security, and co-chaired the National Research Council Committee on Future Research Goals and Directions for Foundational Science in Cybersecurity and three National Academy of Sciences Colloquia on “The Science of Science Communication.”
He is a former member of the Eugene, Oregon Commission on the Rights of Women, Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Advisory Committee, the World Federation of Scientists Permanent Monitoring Panel on Terrorism, and the Environmental Protection Agency Science Advisory Board, where he chaired the Homeland Security Advisory Committee. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA), the Association for Psychological Science, the Society of Experimental Psychologists, and the Society for Risk Analysis.
Fischhoff has co-authored or edited numerous publications including Acceptable Risk, Elicitation of Preferences, Risk Communication: A Mental Models Approach, Communicating Risks and Benefits: An Evidence-Based Guide, and Judgment and Decision Making.