Stephan is a cognitive scientist at the University of Western Australia whose research examines people’s memory and decision making, with particular emphasis on how people respond to corrections of misinformation. He has published over 120 scholarly articles, chapters, and books, including a recent journal article on how people process information about the Iraq War, which revealed the important role of skepticism in people’s ability to update their memories. Another recent paper revealed that when shown the full data, people uniformly expect global warming to continue.
Stephan was awarded a Discovery Outstanding Researcher Award from the Australian Research Council in 2011. He has contributed opinion pieces to the national media on issues related to war and terrorism, and climate change. He is particularly interested in the difference between skepticism and denial when it comes to climate change.
He is one of the principals of http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org, a website dedicated to discussing solutions to the multiple crises facing our societies—from responses to climate change to new forms of generating energy.
