The School of Arts and Sciences
Psychology (UG)
Full Name: Chandrima Powers
Assistant Professor of Psychology
B. S., University of Calcutta (India); M.A., Ph.D., University of Toledo.
Why do we not always make the best decisions for ourselves and/or others? In her
research, Dr. Bhattacharya focuses on understanding the underlying phenomena involved
in human judgment and decision making. She is particularly interested in how affective,
contextual, and cognitive factors affect people’s decisions in a progressively complex
world. She has three major strands of basic research; first, she studies how differences
in individual predispositions in understanding numbers, information processing style,
risk taking attitude and strength of inter-hemispheric interaction influence decision
making. A second central strand of research concerns how using different computerized
technologies as well as physiological and neurological measures can aid in the understanding
of ongoing decision making processing prior to making a decision. Third, focusing
on more applied research, she is interested in how risk perception and risk communication
in decision making affect health decisions and decision making in the elderly. Dr.
Bhattacharya’s works have been published in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making,
Psychological Studies, and Psychology and Aging. She enjoys teaching cognitive psychology,
cognitive neuroscience, statistics and research methods. She is very excited to join
PBA and very interested in working with the elderly through PBA’s Workship program.
