I am an Associate Professor of Practice in Behavioral & Decision Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania and a Visiting Professor at Stanford University. I'm also a fellow at both the Behavioral and Decision Sciences Program and the Center for Social Norms and Behavioral Dynamics at the University of Pennsylvania, a collaborator at the Behavior Change for Good Initiative (BCFG) at Wharton & a Network Fellow at CESifo. From 2022 - 2023, I was also part of the former White House Behavioral Science Team (now: OES) and worked on high-impact RCTs related to the opioid epidemic.

I work primarily in the field of experimental behavioral economics, particularly focusing on behavioral ethics and behavior change. My recent research explores how social norms and nudges can influence our self-serving beliefs and actions. I also examine how these factors can promote pro-social and anti-social behavior in different contexts, both individually and collectively, and how societal polarization is exacerbated. 

Another area that I'm actively exploring relates to the interplay between corruption, terrorism, and migration. I'm dedicated to better understanding the reasons people choose or are forced to migrate, and the resulting effects of these movements. My interest in these subjects is not purely academic; it is also deeply personal. Having emigrated from Moldova as a refugee following the collapse of the Soviet Union, this firsthand experience has created a long-lasting imprint. 

My Google Scholar page provides a good overview.

June 2025:

New Announcement
We have now launched the call for applications to our Workshop on Directions of Polarization, Social Norms, and Trust in Societies (jointly organized by Kati Kish Bar-On, Adam Berinsky, Eugen Dimant, Yphtach Lelkes, and David G. Rand), taking place at MIT on December 5–6, 2025. Registrations are open now, find more information here: link. 

March 2025:

New Publication
In joint work with Angela Duckworth, Katy Milkman, and the Behavior Change for Good Initiative (BCFG), we published a new Megastudy in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). In it, we evaluate the most effective interventions to boost math performance among nearly 3 million elementary students. The paper can be downloaded here: link. 

New Working Paper
We have a new working paper called 'Experimental Methods: Eliciting and Measuring Social Norms' (joint with G. Charness, U. Gneezy & E. Krupka). In it, we provide an overview of different social norms elicitation methods and offer guidance on when each method is most appropriate. The paper can be downloaded here: link.

New Working Paper
In another working paper, we study the pro-sociality of Hadza Hunter-Gatherers. This study challenges the notion that forager food-sharing stems from intrinsic fairness preferences, suggesting instead that such behaviors may be driven by self-interest, social enforcement, or external norms rather than universal egalitarian motives. The paper can be downloaded here: link. 

Nudging Teachers: A Megastudy To Increase Math Achievement Among 3 Million Elementary School Students
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 2025
Short Description: Aiming to improve math achievement among nearly 3 million elementary students, we conducted a megastudy with more than 140,000 teachers in partnership with Zearn Math, a nonprofit educational platform. The most effective of 15 email interventions prompted teachers to log into the platform’s dashboard weekly to check their students’ progress. 

Link to Paper ‖ Ungated Version ‖ BibTeX Citation

Hate Trumps Love: The Impact of Political Polarization on Social Preferences
Management Science, 2024
Short Description: This paper provides a comprehensive assessment of the impact of political polarization on social preferences, suggesting that negative expectations about an opposing group's cooperativeness drive intergroup conflict and that popular behavioral interventions -- such as norm-nudges and defaults --
do not significantly reduce the polarization gap. 

Link to Paper ‖ Ungated Version ‖ BibTeX Citation

Strategic Behavior with Tight, Loose & Polarized Norms
Management Science, 2024
Short Description: This study explores how individuals respond to different distributions of descriptive norms—tight, loose, and polarized—in strategic contexts. It empirically demonstrates that the variance and shape of behavioral norms significantly impact decision-making, with polarized environments prompting extreme actions, and personal traits and values becoming more influential in loose and polarized settings.

Link to Paper ‖ Ungated Version ‖ BibTeX Citation

A Synthesis of Evidence for Policy from Behavioural Science During COVID-19
Nature, 2023
Short Description: Behavioral science played a pivotal role in shaping public health responses during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to an influx of studies. This review systematically assessed 19 major policy recommendations, finding that at least 16 were supported by evidence. Emphasis was placed on the importance of evidence-backed interventions, especially in areas like combating misinformation and utilizing effective messaging strategies.

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Competition & Moral Behavior: Meta-Analysis of 45 Crowd-Sourced Experimental Designs
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 2023
Short Description: Through collaboration with 45 research teams, the study reveals a minor adverse effect of competition on moral behavior but emphasizes substantial "design heterogeneity," indicating that conclusions drawn from a single experimental design may be limited in their applicability. 

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Nudging Enforcers: How Norm Perceptions and Motives for Lying Shape Sanctions
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS): Nexus, 2023
Short Description: We show that enforcement and perception of norms, particularly in instances of dishonesty, are both subject to change based on the severity and consequences of the violation, and can be modified successfully using established norm-nudging interventions following Bicchieri & Dimant (2019). 

Link to Paper ‖  Ungated Version ‖ BibTeX Citation

It's Not A Lie if You Believe the Norm Does Not Apply: Conditional Norm-Following and Belief Distortion
Games & Economic Behavior, 2023
Short Description: Through theory and experiments, this paper explores the strategic distortion of beliefs about honesty norms, showing that individuals tend to manipulate their views of what others do and approve of to justify self-serving behavior. 

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Social Proximity and the Erosion of Norm Compliance
Games and Economic Behavior, 2022
Short Description: In a series of studies that capture a dynamic but non-strategic experimental setting, we show how compliance with norms of pro-social behavior is influenced by peers’ norm compliance. We show that norm compliance can erode quickly but that social proximity among peers can mute this deterioration.

Link to Paper ‖ Ungated Version ‖ BibTeX Citation