Sendhil Mullainathan

Sendhil Mullainathan is the Peter de Florez Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he holds joint appointments in the Department of Economics and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. His research lies at the intersection of algorithms and human behavior, with a current focus on launching The Bike Shop @ MIT, a new research center dedicated to advancing human-centered AI through scalable “bicycles for the mind” and innovative new “gears” for machine learning.

An avid writer, he is the co-author of Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much, and has contributed regularly to The New York Times. His academic work spans multiple disciplines and has appeared in leading journals, including the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Science, American Economic Review, Psychological Science, British Medical Journal, and Management Science.

Mullainathan is deeply engaged in applying research to real-world problems. He co-founded ideas42, a nonprofit that applies behavioural science to social challenges; the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), which promotes evidence-based policy through randomised evaluations; and Dandelion Health, a company focused on providing high-quality healthcare data to advance medical AI. He also serves on the board of the MacArthur Foundation and has held various roles in government.

Before returning to MIT, where he began his academic career, Mullainathan was the Roman Family University Professor of Computation and Behavioural Science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Prior to that, he was the Robert C. Waggoner Professor of Economics at Harvard University.

Mullainathan is a recipient of the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship and the Infosys Prize. He has been named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, a “Top 100 Global Thinker” by Foreign Policy magazine, and one of Wired UK’s “Smart List: 50 People Who Will Change the World.”