Terence Burnham

Terry Burnham is an economist who studies the biological and evolutionary basis of human behavior. He has a Ph.D. in Business Economics from Harvard University, a Masters from the MIT Sloan School with a concentration in finance. HIs undergraduate degree is in biophysics from the University of Michigan. Prior to Chapman, Terry was a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, the University of Michigan, and the Harvard Business School. His non-academic experiences include working briefly for Goldman, Sachs & Co., being the chief financial officer for Progenics Pharmaceuticals , a start-up biotechnology company, and being the director of portfolio management for Acadian Asset Management, a quantitative equity manager.

Recent Creative, Scholarly Work and Publications

The Secret Syllabus - Signed contract with Princeton University Press. Book on student effectiveness.

• Burnham, Terence C., and Travisano, Michael, “The Landscape of Innovation in Bacteria and Beyond.” PNAS (Cover article), June 2021.

• Burnham, Terence C., and Phelan, Jay, “Ordinaries. Intertemporal choice: biology informs economic theories of discounting.” Journal of Bioeconomics, 2021, 23, 1- 14.

• Smith-Ferguson, Jules, Burnham, Terence C., Beekman, Madeleine, “Experience shapes future foraging decisions in a brainless organism.” Adaptive Behavior, 2021.

• Burnham, Terence C., and Phelan, Jay, “Ordinaries. Big Macs & Economics: Why we love foods that kill us.” Journal of Bioeconomics, 2021, 23, 125-149.

• Editor-in-Chief for the Springer Journal of Bioeconomics

• Chaudhuri, Shomesh E., Burnham, Terence C., and Andrew W. Lo. "An Empirical Evaluation of Tax-Loss-Harvesting Alpha." Financial Analysts Journal, 2020: 76(3).

• Burnham, Terence C., and Phelan, Jay, “Ordinaries. Surviving desire: the causes and cures of self-control issues.” Journal of Bioeconomics. 2020, 23, 137-154.

• Burnham, Terence C., and Phelan, Jay, “Ordinaries. Strangers in a strange land: mismatch and economics.” Journal of Bioeconomics. 22, 1-14, 2020.

• Burnham, Terence C., and Phelan, Jay, “Ordinaries. Happiness is a genetic incentive system.” Journal of Bioeconomics. 2020, 22, 63-76.

• Editor-in-Chief for the Springer, Journal of Bioeconomics

• Burnham, Terence C., Review of “Genesis by Edward O Wilson.” Journal of Bioeconomics. 21, 183-189, 2019.

• Burnham, Terence C., and Phelan, Jay, “Ordinaries. Thomas Kuhn, Adam Smith, and Charles Darwin.” Journal of Bioeconomics. 21, 145-155, 2019.

• Burnham, Terence C., Gakidis, Harry, and Wurgler, Jeffrey, “Negotiating MSCI Country Reclassifications.” Financial Analysts Journal, 2018, 74(1): 77-87.

• Burnham, Terence C., “Gender, Punishment, and Cooperation.” Socius, 2018, 4: 1-8.

• Burnham, Terence C., “She who understands the fruit fly would do more for economics than Adam Smith: introduction to the special issue (on experimental evolution and economics).” Journal of Bioeconomics, 2017,

• Baker, Malcolm, Burnham, Terence C., and Taliaferro, Ryan, “Optimal Tilts: Combining Persistent Characteristic Portfolios.” Financial Analysts Journal, 2017, 73(4): 75-89.

• Lenski, Richard E., and Burnham, Terence C., “Experimental Evolution of Bacteria Across 60,000 Generations, and What It Might Mean for Economics and Human Decision-Making.” Journal of Bioeconomics, 2017

• Burnham, Terence C., Huang, Samuel, and Lo, Andrew W., “Pricing for Survival in the Biopharma Industry.” Journal of Investment Management, 2017, 15(4): 69–91.

• Burnham, Terence C., et al., “Evolutionary Behavioral Economics.” Chapter 8 in Complexity and Evolution. D. S. Wilson and A. Kirman eds. Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press, 2016.

• Burnham, Terence C: "Economics and evolutionary mismatch: humans in novel settings do not maximize." Journal of Bioeconomics, 2016.

• Burnham, Terence C: "Public goods with high-powered punishment: high cooperation and low efficiency." Journal of Bioeconomics, 1-15. 2014

• Meyer, Andrew, Frederick, Shane, Burnham, Terence C, et al: "Disfluent fonts don’t help people solve math problems." Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 144(2): e16. 2015

• Rose, M., et al. (2015). "Four steps toward the control of aging: following the example of infectious disease." Biogerontology: 1-11.

• Burnham, Terence. C., Aimee Dunlap, and David. W. Stephens. "Experimental Evolution and Economics." SAGE Open, 2015, 5(4).

• Burnham, T. C. (2013). Consilience and Economics, comment on Endogenous and Systemic Risk. Endogenous and Systemic Risk. J. Harbaugh and A. Lo, The University of Chicago Press: 105-112.

• Burnham, T. C. (2013). "Toward a neo-Darwinian synthesis of neoclassical and behavioral economics." Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 90, S113-S127.