About David 

David Rand is a Professor of Information Science and Marketing and Management Communications at Cornell University.

Applying the tools of computational social science and cognitive science, David’s research combines behavioral experiments run online and in the field with computational models to understand people’s attitudes, beliefs, and choices. He focuses on exploring how dialogues between humans and generative AI models can be used to correct inaccurate beliefs (e.g. conspiracy theories, health misperceptions), illuminating why people share inaccurate information and what interventions reduce such behaviors, understanding political psychology and polarization, and promoting human cooperation.

David received his B.A. in Computational Biology from Cornell University in 2004 and his Ph.D. in Systems Biology from Harvard University in 2009, was a post-doctoral researcher in Harvard University’s Department of Psychology from 2009 to 2013, and was an Assistant and then Associate Professor (with tenure) of Psychology, Economics, and Management at Yale University from 2013-2018, and an associate and then full professor of Management Science and Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT prior to joining Cornell in 2025.

David has published over 200 papers in peer-reviewed journals including Nature, Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, the American Economic Review, Psychological Science, Management Science, New England Journal of Medicine, and the American Journal of Political Science, and has received widespread attention from print, radio, TV and social media outlets. He has written popular press articles for outlets including the New York Times, Wired, New Scientist, and the Psychological Observer. David has also regularly advised technology companies such as Google, Meta/Facebook and TikTok in their efforts to improve the quality of information on their platforms, as well as the US and UK governments. He was named to Wired magazine’s Smart List 2012 of “50 people who will change the world,” chosen as a 2012 Pop!Tech Science Fellow, awarded the 2015 Arthur Greer Memorial Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Research, chosen as fact-checking researcher of the year in 2017 by the Poyner Institute’s International Fact-Checking Network, awarded the 2020 FABBS Early Career Impact Award from the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, and selected as a 2021 Best 40-Under-40 Business School Professor by Poets & Quants. Papers he has coauthored have been awarded Best Paper of the Year in Experimental Economics, Social Cognition, and Political Methodology.