Here's a tribute written in the memory of my friend who got me started into research.
I am an Assistant Professor at UCLA in the Department of Communication. Previously, I was a postdoc at MIT Sloan Marketing. Before then, I received my PhD in Computer Science at Princeton University, advised by Tom Griffiths, with my dissertation receiving the 2024 SfNC dissertation award. My research was recently honored with the 2025 Grand Prize of the NOMIS and Science Young Explorer Award.
Research Summary
I am a computational cognitive scientist, working at the intersection of cognition, AI, and policy. My lab, the Computational Cognitive Policy Lab, focuses on two core questions. First, we study how our minds fail to notice or act on long-term threats such as climate change and technology dependence. Second, we employ AI and machine learning tools to design human-centric policies - policies that reflect diverse perspectives and are more likely to gain public support. My lab regularly collaborates with policymakers and agencies to help translate these insights into scalable action.
Representative publications (see my google scholar or CV for full list of publications)
The normalization of (almost) everything
Rachit Dubey (2025). Science
Grand Prize Winner, Nomis & Science Young Explorer Award.
Selected interviews: Science magazine, Radio interview with CBC Quirks & Quarks, AAAS news
Binary climate data visuals amplify perceived impact of climate change
Grace Liu, Jake Snell, Tom Griffiths, and Rachit Dubey (2025). Nature Human Behavior
Media coverage: Guardian, Grist, Gizmodo, UCLA Newsroom, Legal Planet
Invited Op-eds: New Scientist, Bulletin.org
Discussions on the web: r/climate, Slashdot, Bluesky
AI-generated visuals of car-free US cities help improve support for sustainable policies
Rachit Dubey, Matthew Hardy, Thomas Griffiths, and Rahul Bhui (2024). Nature Sustainability
Media coverage: Bloomberg, MIT Ideas Made to Matter, Washington Post
Having multiple selves helps learning agents explore and adapt in complex changing worlds
Zack Dulberg, Rachit Dubey, Isabel Berwian, and Jonathan Cohen (2023). PNAS
Media coverage: Psychology Today, Princeton News, Tech Xplore
The pursuit of happiness: A reinforcement learning perspective on habituation and comparisons
Rachit Dubey, Tom Griffiths, and Peter Dayan (2022). PLOS Computational Biology
Media coverage:
Vox,
Phys.org,
Neurologica,
Deutschlandfunk,
NatGeo
Reconciling novelty and complexity through a rational analysis of curiosity
Rachit Dubey, and Tom Griffiths (2020). Psychological Review
Featured as a spotlight article in
Trends in Cognitive Science.