Arthur Lupia

Dr. Arthur Lupia is Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation. In that capacity, he serves as head of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE). He also serves the Hal R. Varian Collegiate Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan and as co-chair of the Office of Science and Technology Policy’s Subcommittee on Open Science. Prior to arriving at NSF, he served as Chairperson of the Board for the Center for Open Science, as chair of the National Academies Roundtable on the Communication and Use of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and on numerous scientific advisory boards.

Dr. Lupia’s research and related public work examines processes, principles, and factors that guide decision-making and learning. His efforts clarify how people make decisions, and choose what to believe, when they lack information or face adverse circumstances. Lupia draws from mixes of mathematics, statistics, neuroscience, economics, psychology and other scientific disciplines to advance these topics. His work on civic competence, information processing, how voters learn and science communication has influenced scholarly practice, public policy, and classroom teaching in many countries.

Dr. Lupia has been a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, a Andrew Carnegie Fellow, and is a recipient of the National Academy of Sciences Award for Initiatives in Research. He earned his bachelor’s degree in economics at the University of Rochester and his social science PhD at the California Institute of Technology.