Welcome to the Department of Social and Decision Sciences
The Department of Social and Decision Sciences (SDS) is an interdisciplinary department that offers undergraduate and graduate programs that combine studies in the social sciences with the practical skills needed to excel in key decision making roles in the public and private sectors.
Students learn how to combine intellectual ideals with the realities of human and organizational behavior and to apply these lessons across a wide variety of endeavors, ranging from government service to leadership positions in the information economy.
Mission
The mission of the Department of Social and Decision Sciences is to provide intellectual leadership in the social sciences, brought about by the power of a transdisciplinary environment for research and learning, for teaching and training, and for solving social problems.
In the News
Congratulations to Qitong Feng, an incoming Ph.D. student in the Department of Social & Decision Sciences, for being named a Dietrich College Scholar in recognition of her academic excellence and passion for applying behavioral science to real-world challenges.
SDS Department Head Gretchen Chapman co‑led a groundbreaking large‑scale study evaluating the fairness and reliability of single‑blind vs. double‑blind peer review. The findings, which revealed nuanced effects across demographic groups, are already influencing real-world review practices in her field.
Lily Hazam, a recent graduate of the Department of Social and Decision Sciences, has been awarded a 2025-26 Fulbright grant to teach English in South Korea. Carnegie Mellon celebrates her achievement as part of this year’s cohort of Fulbright recipients.
SDS offers an array of undergraduate majors, including:
- BS in Behavioral Economics
- BS in Decision Science
- BS in Policy & Management
The majors leverage SDS’s departmental core that includes courses in decision analysis, empirical research, organizations, policy analysis and applied psychology .
SDS also offers four minors in Behavioral Economics, Decision Science, Policy & Management and Sociology
Graduate study within SDS offers eight areas of focus:
- Behavioral Decision Research
- Cognitive Decision Science
- Social and Decision Sciences
- Behavioral Marketing and Decision Research (Joint with the Tepper School of Business)
- Behavioral Economics (Joint with the Tepper School of Business)
- Psychology and Behavioral Decision Research (Joint with the Department of Psychology)
- Medical Scientist Training Program MD-PhD (Joint with the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine)
- Autonomous and Human Decision Making (joint with the Machine Learning Department in the School of Computer Science)