< Back to previous page

Researcher

Dirk Van Rooy

  • Research Expertise:My academic and applied work for industry and government is very much focused on how behavioural design, psychology and technology can help create positive behaviour change to promote resilience, health and sustainable behaviour. Some of the questions I focus on in my work: How can we promote positive behaviour change using behavioural insights and technology? What are the individual and social biases that shape our thinking, behaviour and decision making? How do organisations, governments and its leaders deal with uncertainty and complexity? I have worked both in industry and academia intermittently for the last 10 years, mostly in the UK, US and Australia. For instance, as senior research fellow I helped establish the ANU Policy Experiments Lab, a collaborative team of researchers and related resources that work on experimental and quasi-experimental studies with an explicit policy focus. As Chief Behavioural Scientist at ThinkPlace, I set up and lead a behavioural insights group that focused on the application of experimental methods and computational modelling techniques to explore behavioural change, social influence, (political) trust, group performance and decision making. I have lead and conducted a number of research projects, funded by industry and government, that focused on behaviour change and behavioural design in the context of climate change mitigation and the circular economy. I have taught (and continue to do so) research methods and data science, behavioural design, statistics and social psychology at Universities, as well as for industry, defense and government clients.
  • Keywords:STATISTICS, RESEARCH METHODS, BEHAVIOURAL EXPERIMENTS, RESEARCH METHODOLOGY, PSYCHOLOGY, RESEARCH MANAGEMENT, EXPERIMENTAL STUDY, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI), Other technical sciences
  • Disciplines:Human-centred design, Strategic design, Systems design, Other product development not elsewhere classified, Behavioural sciences, Cultural and cross-cultural psychology, Engineering psychology, Environmental psychology, Work and organisational psychology, Artificial intelligence, Research methods and experimental design, Statistics and data analysis, Group and interpersonal processes, Social behaviour and social action, Social perception and cognition
  • Research techniques:Advanced applied statistics Survey design, Research methodology Simulation and modelling Ethical aspects of research Social psychological and cultural aspects of technology use and acceptance Social factors in the design of software systems. Behavioral Science Policy Analysis Behavioral Insights Human Factors Human Centered Design Data Analytics Human Computer Interaction User Experience Design Autonomous Systems Mixed Methods Research
  • Users of research expertise:Decision makers in federal and local government, local councils and industry.