Joe Arvai

Research

Joe Arvai is the Max McGraw Professor of Sustainable Enterprise, and the Director of the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan. He is jointly appointed between the School of Natural Resources & Environment, and the Ross School of Business. Joe is an internationally recognized expert in the risk and decisions sciences; his research has two main areas of emphasis: First, Joe and his research group conduct experiments focused on advancing our understanding of how people process information and make decisions, with a specific emphasis on how people make tradeoffs. Second, Joe and his team conduct research focused on developing and testing decision-aiding tools and approaches that can be used by people to improve decision quality across a wide range of environmental, social, and economic contexts. Joe's research is applied, and accounts for decision-making by a broad spectrum of public and stakeholder groups, as well as by technical experts, business leaders, and policy makers. His work also focuses on choices made by people individually, and when working in groups. Likewise, he conducts his research across a wide range of contexts, ranging from environmental risk management, to consumer choice and policy-making. In addition to Joe's academic work, he is a member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Chartered Science Advisory Board, and is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences' Board on Environmental Change and Society.