Two Penn Integrates Knowledge professors at the University of Pennsylvania, Barbara Mellers and Philip Tetlock, have been awarded the 2017 Thomas C. Schelling Award by Harvard University’s Kennedy School. The award recognizes individuals whose “remarkable intellectual work has had a transformative impact on public policy.” It was presented April 6 during a ceremony in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Drs. Mellers and Tetlock led a Penn team together in The Good Judgement Project, a four-year prediction tournament sponsored by the US intelligence community. The team focused on the abilities of intuition, probability, teamwork and computational analysis and created a system of “superforecasters,” made up of ordinary people whose combined predictive abilities became more powerful than that of CIA analysts. The system was adapted for use by intelligence agencies.

Dr. Mellers is the I. George Heyman University Professor with appointments in the psychology department in the School of Arts & Sciences and the marketing department in the Wharton School. Her work focuses on judgment and decision making.

Dr. Tetlock is the Annenberg University Professor with appointments in psychology in Arts & Sciences and management in Wharton. He focuses on the intersection of political science, psychology and management science with a goal to improve prediction methods in political, business and other spheres.