Tony Hua

Citizenship: USA

I am a postdoctoral researcher at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. My research examines how cognition shapes individual behavior and collective decision-making.

One strand of my work studies how beliefs, attention, and social norms influence behavior in morally ambiguous settings, including strategic ignorance and dishonesty. A second strand studies collective reasoning: how people allocate cognitive effort, divide the search for ideas and arguments, and benefit (or fail to benefit) from cognitive diversity. Across both areas, I am interested in how institutions can improve decisions when relevant motivations, beliefs, and ways of thinking are imperfectly observable.

My work combines economic theory and laboratory experiments and draws on insights from cognitive science, psychology, political science, and organizational research.

Before entering academia, I worked as an independent game developer and as an instructor at 9 Dots, a nonprofit that develops computer science education for K–12 public schools in the Los Angeles area. Outside of research, I enjoy designing and playing games of all kinds.

Free free to reach out!

Contact: thua5 [at] ucmerced [dot] edu

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