Adrian Ward

Biography

Adrian Ward is an assistant professor in the marketing department of the McCombs School of Business, the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to joining UT, he spent two years as a senior research associate in the Center for Research on Consumer Financial Decision Making at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He received his PhD in psychology from Harvard University. Professor Ward’s work explores attention, knowledge, and decision-making “in context.” His doctoral dissertation on becoming “One with the ‘Cloud’” examines the causes and consequences of offloading responsibility for memory to the Internet, and his work with the CRCFDM focuses on the implications of offloading responsibility for financial expertise to long-term relationship partners “On a Need-to-Know Basis.” Additional published and ongoing research explores moral perception and decision-making (“Paying it Forward”), consumer interactions with new technologies, and consumer financial decision-making. His research has been published in journals including Psychological Science, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, and Psychological Inquiry, and covered by popular press outlets including The New York Times, New Statesman, Scientific American, The Huffington Post, and Education Week. He writes for Scientific American in his (increasingly rare) spare time, and penned the magazine’s most read story of 2012.

Professional Awards

• Gordon W. Allport Fund Research Grant, Harvard University2012
• Ernest Frederick Slater Scholarship Award, Harvard University (3 times)2012

Teaching Awards

• Derek Bok Award for Distinction in Teaching, Harvard University (4 times)2012
• George W. Goethals Award for Excellence in Teaching, Harvard University2011