Jet Sanders

Dr Jet Sanders is Assistant Professor in Behavioural Science at The London School of Economics and Political Science.

Jet conducts psychological and behavioural experiments in the lab and field to improve health and wellbeing on a population level. Having graduated from United World College Costa Rica and University of Glasgow, Jet holds an MRes and PhD in Psychology from the University of York, and has conducted research at Kyoto University, Public Health England’s Behavioural Insights Team and the Center for Advanced Hindsight at Duke University. She currently holds a dual position as Senior Behavioural Scientist with the Corona Behavioural Unit of the National institute for Public Health and the Environment of the Netherlands.

Jet focuses on making behavioural science more inclusive, generalisable and replicable. She does this by advancing aspects of heterogeneous practice. This may include answering questions like: Who are today’s behavioural scientists? Do they have the theoretical and methodological understanding as intended? And what is needed to bridge possible gaps? How can behavioural science be embedded structurally in the policy making process? Which trade-off of methods is reliable yet efficient in real-world decision contexts? And how can scientific integrity be preserved in a fast-paced decision process? How can the reproducibility of behavioural findings be advanced? Most of this research is conducted in the context of preventative healthcare: reducing lifestyle disease, the spread infectious disease, air pollution or antimicrobial resistance. One key solution that Jet focuses on results from temporal fluctuations in decision making and behaviour. Her research shows that the weekly cycle influences our risk-taking behaviour, with serious consequences for health care, crime, economic and political settings. In her research, Jet maps these consequences and looks to see how we can use this knowledge to make changes to the decision context.

Previously, Jet also researched faces. Her PhD focused on understanding embodied cognition, first impressions and attribution errors using hyper-realistic face masks, and the dangers of hyper-realistic masks in international security.