Ellen Peters (W'89, E'89)
Email: Feel free to contact Ellen Peters at ellenpet@uoregon.edu
What do you do now and where are you based?
I’m based in Eugene, Oregon and I'm a professor at the University of Oregon. I’m in two departments at the University: the School of Journalism and Communication and the psychology department. I also direct our Center for Science Communication Research. My job as a professor means that I teach, I do a lot of research, and I also do some administrative work especially in directing my center.
What’s an average day in the life for you?
It totally depends on the day – Some days I do a lot of writing and analyzing research data. For example, I’ll look at how we can best communicate the health implications of climate change so that we can help people make the critical connection between health and climate, and act on it so that they end up being healthier in the long term. So I might analyze data from an experiment we did and write it up for an article. Another day, I’ll prepare to teach a course. I mostly teach students about science communication and decision making. And then some days, I set aside to plan activities for my center. We host a series of events and also run a small grants program through the center.
What brought you to Oregon?
I moved here with my first husband in the early 1990s and stayed in Oregon for about 20 years, raising our daughter. I then moved to Ohio State University, where I was a distinguished professor in the psychology department. About three years ago, I took this position in Oregon and moved back. It’s a perfect job for me and my family. And it’s lovely out here – the waterfalls, the coast, the mountains and the air are all so beautiful.
What is the greatest accomplishment of your career?
Working in the field of judgment and decision making, I started the study of what's called numeracy. It’s like literacy, but with numbers. So I started the study of individual differences in math ability and how it affects our judgments and decisions. I have been a leader in that field for many years now.
How has being a woman affected your career trajectory, if it has?
That’s a tough one. I think sometimes it’s helped and other times it’s hurt my career. For example, I think women don’t always receive the automatic respect that men do. For example, I've sat on many panels – or “man-els” – with all men and then there’s me. More than once, I’ve been on one of these and the host refers to everyone as “Dr. ___” and then they get to me and it’s just Ellen. It’s a subtle way of putting down a woman. Others might see it as being friendly with the person, but it’s less respectful than the rest of the panel is being treated. Fortunately, it hasn't happened very often, but there have definitely been a few times where I’m like “Yup, that’s because I’m female.” But there are also positives to being a woman. I feel free to interact with my students and colleagues in ways that are professional and also allow for having an emotional life. I feel like men don’t feel as free to do that. Mostly though, I don’t think about how being a woman has affected my career. I’ve had a lot of great male and female mentors, and I’ve loved my career.
What brought you into your career? What was your trajectory post-college like?
I was in M&T when I was at Penn, so I did systems engineering and chemical engineering in Engineering, and I concentrated in marketing in Wharton. Ater Penn, I worked for Procter and Gamble as a chemical engineer, but because they are so very consumer focused, much of my time there was spent on consumer behavior issues, which I really liked. After that, I went into product marketing at a company in Oregon (that’s when we moved to Oregon), and it was there that I realized I missed doing the experimental studies I had done at Procter and Gamble. I loved figuring things out in an experimental way. For example, I did experiments where I sent out boxes of laundry detergent to houses around the country. All of the boxes had the exact same detergent except for its color and smell. I found that people had no idea how well a laundry detergent cleaned the clothes. Instead, they paid most attention to the smell and color of the product. Ultimately, this interest in figuring out how people thought through experimental methods led me to get a PhD in psychology. From there, I worked in a non-profit research center for 12 years, and then I was a psychology professor for 10 years. During this time, I had the great privilege of doing a sabbatical at Penn! Coming back to the Pacific Northwest, I liked the idea of running a center focused on making science more useful in improving people’s lives. So now I’m in the School of Journalism and Communication, and also the Psychology Department at the University of Oregon.
What advice do you wish you had known when you were an undergraduate?
My biggest piece of advice is to figure out what you enjoy and spend as much time as you can on it. While at Penn, I had traveled a lot outside the campus and around the East Coast, but I wished I had done even more. It’s always a good thing to open your eyes and see new things. So go see other places – go to the Midwest, go to the West Coast, or other countries.
What advice do you have for our members as they begin exploring internships, careers, and the business world at large?
Think deeply about what it is that you value in life. It’s different from person to person – for some people it’s doing social good, for other people it’s money, for other people it’s their family and friends. But think hard before you choose your job about what it is that you value, and keep revisiting that question over time so that you base your choices on it. It’s really easy to pick jobs based on money, for example. But for some people, that’s not actually what they value. It depends on the person and there really is no right answer.