Gerd Gigerenzer

German psychologist and acclaimed academic Gerd Gigerenzer has trained top managers, German physicians and U.S Federal Judges in how to understand risks and the skills involved with decision-making, and is director of the Harding Center for Risk Literacy at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development.

Gigerenzer is considered a leading expert in the use of heuristics in decision making, and has written many best-selling books including Risk Savvy: How to Make Good Decisions, Simply Rational: Decision Making in the Real World, and his award-winning titles Calculated Risks: How To Know When Numbers Deceive You, and Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious have been translated into 18 languages.

He has been interviewed for top publications around the world including The New York Times, and has won countless accolades and awards, including the Communicator Award of the German Research Association (DFG), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Prize for the best article in the behavioural sciences and the Association of American Publishers Prize for the best book in the social and behavioural sciences.

Gigerenzer completed his doctorate in psychology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich before becoming Professor of psychology at the University of Konstanz from 1984 to 1990 , and in the following years he took on the same role at the University of Salzburg and University of Chicago . In 1995 he became Director of the Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research in Munich and later served as Director of Adaptive Behaviour and Cognition until 2017. Gigerenzer is in demand as a speaker and author, discussing his breakthrough studies on the nature of intuitive thinking and how ordinary people successfully use it in modern life.