Carsten Murawski
| Principal Investigator and Director, Centre for Brain, Mind and Markets |
About Carsten
I am a decision scientist, Professor in the Department of Finance at the University of Melbourne, and Director of the Centre for Brain, Mind and Markets (CBMM). I am currently Graduate Research Director of the interdisciplinary doctoral program Decision, Risk and Financial Sciences and Academic Lead of the University of Bonn-University of Melbourne joint PhD program.
My primary research and teaching areas are decision neuroscience, experimental economics/finance, decision theory, consumer decision-making, computational psychiatry and cognitive science. Most of my current research investigates the neurocognitive computations underlying decision-making and how their properties affect decision-making in healthy and clinical populations. I use a variety of methods including behavioral experiments, eye-tracking, pharmacological challenges and neuroimaging in both human and non-human animals.
My translational research covers consumer decision-making, decision-making and health, and high-performance decision-making.
More information about my current research is available in my research overview.
I am a co-editor, with Ulrich Ettinger and Bert Heinrichs, of the book Decision Making: Mechanisms and Applications (Springer, 2025). My research has been published in leading journals in biology, cognitive science, finance, neuroscience, psychiatry and psychology and has been covered by leading media outlets including CBS, The Economist, Financial Times, Guardian, National Geographic, NBC, New Scientist and The Washington Post.
I am of the co-initiators of Street Finance, a program aimed at improving financial behaviour and outcomes of young Victorians at a critical time of transition from adolescence to adulthood, on the verge of making many major financial decisions. The program's core is a final-year undergraduate subject in the Bachelor of Commerce. Students in the subject develop and subsequently deliver lessons on basic financial knowledge in Victorian high schools. The program was launched in 2015 and has reached over 2,000 high school students. More information about the program is available on the program page.
Before joining the University of Melbourne, I was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Zurich. I have been a visiting researcher at New York University and Columbia University. My teaching experience includes undergraduate and graduate courses at the University of Melbourne, the University of Zurich, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich. In addition to my academic career, I have several years of experience in the finance industry.
I hold a PhD from the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and a Master’s degree from the University of Bayreuth, Germany.
I supervise Honours students in the Honours in Finance program and PhD students in the doctoral program Decision, Risk and Financial Sciences in areas of my current research. If you are interested in working with me in any of those areas, please email me.
Contact details
Email: carstenm[at]unimelb.edu.au
Phone: +61 3 8344 9077
Office: Room 12.039, Level 12, The Spot, 198 Berkeley Street, Carlton