Members

At the NeuroPolicy Lab, we combine insights from different disciplines to better understand human behavior and improve public policies. Meet our passionate team of researchers and learn about their work.

Principal Investigator

Omar David Perez

Omar D. Perez is an assistant professor at DII and an ISCI researcher. He is an economist and holds a master’s degree in mathematics from the University of Santiago, Chile. He went on to earn his PhD in Psychology from the University of Cambridge, focusing on goal-directed and habitual decision-making, and later expanded this work at Caltech, where he was a Research Scholar in Neuroscience, studying the neuroeconomics of habits. His current research explores consumer and traveler behavior, employing eye-tracking, EEG, and computational modeling. In his free time, Omar plays guitar in @filorock2024 and wrestles with chess—a hobby he’s been addicted to since learning the basic rules during the pandemic.
Personal website

Bastian Henriquez Jara

Bastian Henriquez is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the Universidad de Chile. He studied Civil Engineering at Universidad de La Frontera, specializing in transport engineering, and later obtained a PhD in Engineering Systems from the Universidad de Chile. His research focuses on how the intersection of econometrics, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience can deepen our understanding of people’s travel behavior. In his free time, he enjoys cycling, reading (not always academic papers), and drawing.

Current members

Sebastian Muñoz

Sebastián Muñoz is a B.Sc. in Engineering from the Universidad de Chile. His work focuses on the role of attention in consumer decision-making using eye-tracking and computational models of behavior. He will be starting his Master’s studies in Operations Research at the Universidad de Chile in 2025, extending his current work. Sebastián is also a streamer whose identity is hidden behind a GIF character he himself designed.

Jose Arenas

José Arenas is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in Engineering Systems at the Department of Industrial Engineering, Universidad de Chile, where he has also been a lecturer on causal inference and data analysis. He is an economist and holds a master’s degree in Economics from Adolfo Ibáñez University. His current research focuses on the behavioral finance of credit cards and the data analysis of behavioral experiments in humans. He has also spent time as a visiting researcher at Chicago Booth, training in modern behavioral finance methods. In his free time, José enjoys exercising and can often be found in Santiago’s parks practicing calisthenics.

Gonzalo Díaz

Gonzalo Díaz is an Industrial Engineer with a Master’s degree in Management and Public Policy from the Universidad de Chile. He is currently a Ph.D. student at the SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell University, specializing in Marketing. In the NeuroPolicy Lab, Gonzalo works on modeling travelers’ decision-making, focusing on the psychological and computational underpinnings of evasion behavior in public transport. In his free time, Gonzalo enjoys analyzing public policy data, exploring new methodologies, and engaging in discussions that bridge technical and social perspectives.

Renato Muñoz

Renato is an undergraduate Engineering student at the Universidad de Chile, interested in transportation behavior and modeling problems for public policy solutions. Motivated by his teachers’ research experiences, he aspires to become an academic investigator, aiming to enhance society’s quality of life. In his free time, Renato studies cooking and culinary techniques, plays the drums, and reserves time to studying the Bible.

Collaborators

Angelo Guevara

Prof. Civil Engineering Universidad de Chile, PhD Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Marcela Munizaga

Prof. Civil Engineering Universidad de Chile, PhD Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Innovating at the intersection of neuroscience, choice modelling, and public policy