Joe Arvai is a Professor of Judgment and Decision Making within the Department of CARRS and the Environmental Science and Policy Program at Michigan State University. He is also affiliated with MSU's Cognitive Science Program. Outside of MSU, Joe is an adjunct professor in the Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability at The University of British Columbia, and one of the principal investigators at Decision Research in Eugene, OR. 

In addition to teaching two courses at MSU, Arvai conducts an active research program that has two main objectives. First, it focuses on advancing and testing theories in the decision sciences that deal with how people make decisions—both as individuals and in groups—largely in the absence of formalized decision support. Informed by this work, the second objective of his research is to develop and test decision aids that can be used by people to improve decision quality across a variety of contexts. While some of this latter research is lab-based, a significant portion of it is carried out in the field and is intended to have practical benefit; to this end, much of it is carried out in cooperation with actual decision makers and is set against the backdrop of real-world decision problems. 

Beyond his research, Dr. Arvai frequently leads workshops to improve the decision-making skills of both risk managers and stakeholders. Dr. Arvai's home is in Michigan but he works across Canada, the United States, and internationally as a consultant to various government agencies and non-profit groups; recently, he has worked as an advisor to NASA, the EPA's Science Advisory Board, the National Academy of Sciences, and Natural Resources Canada. In 2006, he received the Chauncey Starr Award from the Society for Risk Analysis. 

More information about Dr. Arvai’s work can be found at his website: http://www.msu.edu/~sknkwrks