An exceptional interest in the scientific understanding of the way people think and act has prompted Emmanuel “Manny” Roman, ’87, to make a significant investment to support the Center for Decision Research (CDR) at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. In recognition of Roman’s generosity, the center will now be named the Roman Family Center for Decision Research.
Roman, a University of Chicago Trustee since 2015, is CEO of Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO), one of the world’s premier fixed income investment managers, based in Newport Beach, California.
“Working for PIMCO has been the pinnacle of my career. I am grateful to work with so many bright people, in an environment where we actively challenge thinking and explore ideas to help us reach the best decisions,” said Roman. “It’s a privilege to be able to expand on PIMCO’s investment with the CDR, as well as extend my personal long-term commitment to Chicago Booth. My longtime friend Richard Thaler and I have shared many engaging conversations about human behavior and decision-making, and as the CEO of PIMCO, it’s pushed me to test, challenge, and explore. I hope that this new chapter continues to spark lifelong learning and innovation around decision-making.”
When it was founded in 1977, the Center for Decision Research was at the vanguard of a new field devoted to understanding human judgment and decision-making. The CDR helped pioneer the use of behavioral science to explain inconsistencies between actual and theoretically rational human behavior. It also spearheaded a broad expansion of the field of behavioral science. Using insights from numerous disciplines, CDR faculty now lead a field that is proving indispensable for understanding human behavior in economics, finance, marketing, management, healthcare, politics, charity, and many other domains.
In 2017, the work of the CDR community was brought to the attention of a broader global audience when the CDR’s longtime faculty director, Richard Thaler, the Charles R. Walgreen Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to behavioral economics.
Now led by Nicholas Epley, the John Templeton Keller Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Neubauer Family Faculty Fellow, the CDR has continued to expand its impact in recent years, with the help of PIMCO.
In 2018, PIMCO and the CDR announced a partnership in support of the CDR’s behavioral science research. In recognition of this investment, Booth’s CDR laboratories were renamed the PIMCO Decision Research Laboratories.