Dr. Sanae Okamoto is a psychologist and behavioural scientist with background in Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience, and Behavioural Economics. She has an expertise in both industry and academia by applying psychology and behavioural science insights towards diverse objectives such as Circular Economy, Climate Resilience, Mental Health and Well-being from multiple angles such as Gender, Youth, Water, Disasters, Plastics, Digitalisation, AI, and Business. She also provides workshops and seminars for practitioners in public and private sectors. She is co-lead of the triinstitutional initiative of UNU-Climate Reslience Initiative.
She received her MSc in Psychology from Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University, Japan and her PhD in Psychology from Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University. Her MSc and PhD reseaerch were conducted at Kyoto University, Japan and Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany. Her early research career focused on social dynamics and behaviour in primates (chimpanzees and humans) at Kyoto University and Nagoya University, Japan; the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany; University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA; and the field sites in Republic of Guinea and Republic of Liberia. In the last years, she worked as an assistant professor of behavioural economics and neuroeconomics at the School of Business and Economics, Maastricht University. Before officially joining at MERIT in the early 2021, she was in private sector to address societal challenges and behavioural interventions and contributed to a number of consultancy projects and workshops in behavioural insights informed interventions, business development; program management; university-industry liaison, etc.
