Carnegie Mellon University

Cleotilde (Coty) Gonzalez

Cleotilde (Coty) Gonzalez

Research Professor
Ph.D. in Management Information Systems

Bio

Cleotilde (Coty) Gonzalez is a Research Professor at the Department of Social and Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research work focuses on the study of human decision making in dynamic and complex environments. She is the founding director of the Dynamic Decision Making Laboratory where researchers conduct behavioral studies on dynamic decision making using Decision Making Games, and create technologies and cognitive computational models to support decision making and training. 

Coty is affiliated faculty with the CyLab Security and Privacy InstituteThe HCII Human-Computer Interaction InstituteThe Societal Computing program, and The CNBC Center for Neural Basis of Cognition at Carnegie Mellon University. She is a lifetime fellow of the Cognitive Science Society and of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. She is also a member of the Governing Board of the Cognitive Science Society. She is a Senior Editor for Topics in Cognitive Science, a Consulting Editor for Decision, and Associate Editor for the System Dynamics Review. She is also a member of editorial boards in multiple other journals including: Cognitive Science,  Psychological Review, Perspectives on Psychological Science, and others.

Coty has published hundreds of papers in journals and peer-reviewed proceedings involving a diverse set of fields deriving from her contributions to Cognitive Science. Her work includes the development of a theory of decisions from experience called Instance-Based Learning Theory (IBLT), from which many computational models have emerged in areas as diverse as: cybersecurity, network science, human-machine teaming, and others. She has been Principal or Co-Investigator on a wide range of multi-million and multi-year collaborative efforts with government and industry, including current efforts on Collaborative Research Alliances; Multi-University Research Initiative grants from the Army Research Laboratories and Army Research Office; and large collaborative projects with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Education

Ph.D.: Texas Tech University

Research

My research focuses on the study of decision making in dynamic environments. Dynamic decision making is characterized by the need to make multiple, interdependent, real-time decisions while adapting to external changes and using our past experience.

My general research interest is in determining how decision makers adapt their decisions and learn to make better choices in dynamic situations. To answer this question, I conduct experimental studies using dynamic decision making games, and computational cognitive modeling to represent the human decision making process. To construct cognitive models, we rely on Instance-Based Learning Theory (IBLT), a theory decisions from experience in dynamic tasks.

For graduate students and other applicants interested in my work, please go to the DDMLab for more information.

Publications

A list of selected publications can be found on the DDMLab website.