Orri Stefánsson

Professor Orri Stefánsson holds a faculty position at Stockholm University as a Wallenberg Academy Fellow 2023 in Humanities, with additional research affiliations at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study and Institute for Futures Studies. His work focuses on rational decision-making frameworks for catastrophic global risks including nuclear escalation, pandemics, and climate change through interdisciplinary integration of philosophy, statistics, and political theory.

Stefánsson's research program critically examines ethical foundations of risk assessment, particularly the precautionary principle's practical implementation and valuation of irreversible harm prevention. His methodology combines formal decision theory with epistemological analysis to address probability estimation challenges for low-likelihood high-impact events, while exploring tensions between individual risk perceptions and collective welfare optimization.

Analysis of his 2023-2025 publications reveals dominant themes in catastrophic risk modeling, population ethics, and fairness in risk distribution. Key conceptual threads include de minimis thresholds for acceptable risk, longtermist ethical obligations, and Pigou-Dalton applications to probabilistic outcomes, demonstrating consistent engagement with formal economic models to resolve philosophical dilemmas in existential threat management.

Scientific recognition:

• Wallenberg Academy Fellow 2023

As a Wallenberg Academy Fellow, Stefánsson receives substantial research funding for his project on rational disaster decision-making frameworks. The available documentation indicates no formal advising relationships or additional grant awards beyond this fellowship, with research conducted through theoretical analysis rather than laboratory-based investigations.