Edward Cokely

Edward Cokely is Presidential Research Professor and Professor of Psychology at the University of Oklahoma's Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology. He leads research in decision psychology, specializing in risk literacy, cognitive abilities, and human factors engineering. His work includes developing the Berlin Numeracy Test and Skilled Decision Theory, frameworks that enhance risk comprehension and decision-making across diverse populations.

Research interests span:

• Risk literacy: Cognitive mechanisms for evaluating uncertainty, bias reduction, and adaptive decision heuristics.
• Human Factors Engineering: Applications in safety-critical domains (e.g., offshore operations, aviation) using eye-tracking and simulation training.
• Cross-disciplinary impact: Health communication, climate judgments, and ethical decision-making across 175+ countries.

His articles cluster around three themes: (1) Risk communication innovations using visual aids and numeracy training; (2) Cognitive modeling of expertise in medical, environmental, and industrial contexts; (3) Ethical and philosophical dimensions of diversity, disagreement, and free will.

Awards include:

• FABBS Early Career Impact Award (2017) for advancing decision science
• NSF CAREER Award (2013) for numeracy and risk literacy research

He mentors graduate students in the Cognitive Psychology Ph.D. program, with alumni securing positions at USC, Max Planck Institute, FAA, and Siemens. His lab (RiskLiteracy.org) has secured multi-million-dollar grants from NSF, NOAA, and Templeton Foundation for research on cognitive training and risk communication.