Jonathan Woon

I am a professor of political science at the University of Pittsburgh.

I study human behavior and democratic decision making. Mostly, I am fascinated by the way information, beliefs, and incentives interact to shape individual and collective choices, how electoral and legislative institutions shape those choices, and how behavioral models and experiments structure our inquiry. I have used incentivized experiments to generate insights about accountability, competitiveness, fairness, honesty, exaggeration, polarization, and probability judgments, and I have used observational, survey, and theoretical approaches to gain a better understanding of Congress, legislative process, political parties, direct democracy, presidential primaries, and voting behavior.

I have served as Chair of the Department of Political Science and as Associate Dean for Graduate Studies in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences. In both roles, I emphasized collaboration, communication, and equity—building academic communities that take a range of perspectives seriously and creating structures that support thoughtful decision-making, professional growth, and intellectual exchange.