Dan Ariely is the James B. Duke Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University, where he holds appointments at the Fuqua School of Business, the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, and the department of Economics. In addition, Dan is visiting professor at MIT's Program in Media Arts and Sciences, a founding member of the Center for Advanced Hindsight, a fellow at Diamond Management and Technology Consultants, and President elect of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making. He is also the author of Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions.

As a behavioral economist, Dan Ariely studies how people actually act in the marketplace, as opposed to how they should or would perform if they were completely rational. His interests span a wide range of daily behaviors such as buying (or not), saving (or not), ordering food in restaurants, pain management, procrastination, dishonesty, and decision making under different emotional states.