Name Laurence Maloney | ||
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Education Stanford University (1979–1985) Awards Guggenheim Fellowship for Natural Sciences, US & Canada | ||
Laurence T. Maloney is an American psychology professor who applies mathematical models in order to enhance understanding of human behavior.
A professor in New York University’s Department of Psychology and Center for Neural Science, Maloney has conducted studies in the physics and mathematics of color vision that resulted in two highly cited articles in the Journal of the Optical Society of America. Previously, his work in visual-cue combination led to a frequently cited review article in Vision Research.
Recently, his studies on movement planning and decision making under risk has built a bridge between two previously unrelated fields, serving as an important contribution to the newly emerging field of neuroeconomics.
Maloney and his colleagues are currently studying color perception and surface material perception in complex, three-dimensional scenes, human performance in perceptual and movement tasks equivalent to economic games, and face perception.
In recognition of his scholarship, Maloney has received several awards and honors. These include: the Humboldt Research Award from Germany’s Humboldt Foundation; the Troland Award of the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors possible for a psychologist in the United States, which he shared with Brian Wandell; and a one-year research fellowship, given by the German Research Council, at Bielefeld University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Studies as part of a group considering perception and evolution.
In 1998, Maloney was named Forchheimer Visiting Professor at Hebrew University of Jerusalem and in 2009 WICN Scholar at Bangor University, Wales. He has also been selected as a fellow of the Society of Experimental Psychologists, the Association for Psychological Science, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Maloney was previously an assistant professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in Psychology and in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (1985-1988). He has been a visiting professor at several academic institutions, including the universities of Freiburg, Giessen, Paris, and Padova.
Maloney has a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Yale University (1973), a master's degree in mathematical statistics from Stanford University (1982), and a doctorate in psychology from Stanford (1985).