About this Site
Applying Behavioral Sciences in the Real World was developed through a collaboration between Mindy Hernandez, a 2009-2010 CFED Innovator-In-Residence1 and Genevieve Melford, CFED’s Director of Research, with support from CFED’s Applied Research, Innovation, and Communications Teams. Its purpose is to provide research findings, informational resources, and a forum for asset building practitioners to share their experiences applying behavioral economics to their work with their peers.
Both Mindy and Genevieve first encountered behavioral economics as public affairs graduate students at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School and were consequently inspired to help bring its insights about human behavior out of the lab and into the design of programs and public policies intended to support low income families and individuals.
In addition to the Applying Behavioral Sciences in the Real World website and blog, CFED provides occasional conference sessions, webinars, and other opportunities to both share findings from this work, and to connect assets and financial security professionals with behavioral researchers to create and test new behaviorally informed innovations in the field.
1 As a Senior Research Specialist for ideas42 from 2008 to 2010, Mindy worked with non-profit organizations and government agencies to apply findings in the behavioral sciences to improve a wide range of programs and policies that impact low-income people— from rethinking college scholarship programs to creating smarter automatic savings opportunities.
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