Location

MIT Media Lab, E14-633

Description

Rogers will discuss two topics. The first is on the four underlying psychological and structural factors that determine when intervention treatment effects will persist even after treatment has been discontinued. He will pay special attention to the energy use conservation and voter mobilization contexts.
The second topic is about his current work on developing low-cost, scalable, behavioral science-informed interventions that mobilize and empower outside-of-school social networks to support student achievement. This is the focus of his Student Social Support R&D Lab, and has resulted in social system interventions that reduce absences (K-12), improve test scores (K-12), and increase course completion (college).

Biography

Todd Rogers is an associate professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is a behavioral scientist who runs the Student Social Support R&D Lab at Harvard. His research sits at the intersection of education, psychology, judgment and decision-making, and behavioral economics. It uses data and behavioral science to develop and prove scalable, high ROI interventions that mobilize and empower students’ social support systems to improve achievement. This work takes place in hundreds of educational settings including K-12 schools, online universities, state and community colleges, test prep programs, and MOOCs. His research appears in top academic journals across psychology, economics, education, marketing, decision science, and political science. He is a senior researcher at the think tank ideas42. Prior to joining the faculty at HKS, Todd Rogers was founding executive director of the Analyst Institute, LLC, which uses randomized field experiments and behavioral science insights to understand and improve voter communications (see The New York Times Magazine profile, and book Victory Lab: the secret science of winning campaigns). He received his PhD jointly from Harvard's department of psychology and Harvard Business School, and received his BA from Williams College where he majored in religion and psychology.

Host/Chair: Agnis Stibe