Dan M. Kahan
Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Law and
Professor of Psychology
Yale Law School
Publications Working Papers Blog Courses SSRN Page
Dan Kahan is the Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Law & Professor of Psychology at Yale Law School. His primary research interests (for the moment, anyway) are risk perception, science communication, and the application of decision science to law and policymaking. His studies of cultural cognition--the tendency of individuals to form risk perceptions that express their membership in and loyalty to important affinity groups--have explored conflicting public impressions of scientific consensus on climate change, nuclear power, and gun control; public reactions to emerging technologies; and polarized fact finding in legal proceedings involving political demonstrations, police brutality, and the lawfulness of deadly force employed by the police and by private citizens. Prior to coming to Yale in 1999, Professor Kahan was on the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School. He served as a law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall, of the U.S. Supreme Court (1990-91) and to Judge Harry Edwards of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (1989-90). He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (elected 2013). On June 30, 2013, he will observe the 20th anniversary of the last day on which he actually was obliged to work for a living.