Cognitive scientist with primary research interest in behavioural economics, especially focusing on individual and collective decision-making and information-processes under unmeasurable uncertainty. I have a high need for cognition, fast adaptability, diverse foundations in theoretical understanding, and I love the scientific method. In the end I care about ideas being applied in the real world, solving problems, and benefitting humanity. I often play the role of being an interface between the two worlds.
“If everybody contemplates the infinite instead of fixing the drains, many of us will die of cholera.” ― John Rich
Research Interests
Cognitive Psychology, Heuristics and biases, individual decision-making
Collective: intelligence, rationality, and decision-making
Complex and dynamical systems, computational social science, science of science
Effective altruism, applied ethics, and impact measurement
General (Theoretical) Interests
(Bayesian) Epistemology
History in general, history of ideas, technology and innovation
Philosophy of Science
Public Health, Mental Health, Positive Psychology, Psychology of virtue
Interdisciplinary thinking and communication, science communication
Holistic and humanistic education
Network science
Behavioural and Neuroendocrinology
Information design, Science Illustrations, Visual Representation and Understanding
Talks I give
Impact Thinking (Effective Altruism): How can we think more clearly about and have more positive impact on the world? How can we overcome typical systematic errors in thinking and doing, when helping others?
Social Cognition: What typical mistakes do we make when we think about other humans? What does psychology tell us, how we can do it better?
Quantified Self: What gets measured gets managed: How can we use (self-)measurement to reach (our) goals? What tools are out there? A critical and practical introduction and overview
Academic talks: everything mentioned in "research -" and "general interests"
I am open to expand the portfolio upon request for topics in my domain of competence
Projects, POSITIONS, ACTIVITIES
Rationality Vienna MeetupCo-Organizer of the monthly meetup (discussing heuristics/biases, science and more)
Regularly I perceive how people have naive impressions of my beliefs. Most of my interests do not represent positions and opinions I identify with, but phenomena I am interested in thinking about. I am agnostic and flexible regarding my stands on them and my opinion is like a flag in the wind of good arguments and evidence. Also many of my blog posts do not reflect my standards of quality. I try to produce minimal viable products that are readable and at least approximate my knowledge and opinion, to get ideas and input "out there".